Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

MEMBER SWORN

The following Member took and subscribed the Oath:—

Miss Bernadette Devlin, Mid-Ulster.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords]

PRESTON CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

Read the Third time and passed, without Amendment.

LINDSEY COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords]

NORTHAMPTON CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

PEMBROKESHIRE WATER BOARD BILL [Lords]

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Price Review

Mr. Charles Morrison: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will advance the date of the Annual Price Review.

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will now arrange for an interim autumn Farm Price Review, having regard to cost increases on farms since July, 1970.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Prior): No, Sir. On 6th October the Government announced in a White Paper increases in the guarantees for 1970–71 for most of the main agricultural commodities.

Mr. Morrison: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on introducing an interim price review to cope with an unprecedented situation. Would he have another look at this in general terms? Would he not agree that mid or early March is rather late for most farmers to change their policy for the year in question? Would he not agree that, if the price review were earlier, he might be able to get results sooner?

Mr. Prior: I am going to consult the National Farmers' Union and other interested bodies as to whether or not we


wish either to go on with the same procedure for an annual price review or have it at the same time of the year, but these are long-term considerations and I shall need a good while to undertake negotiations.

Sir G. Nabarro: Whereas farmers everywhere, notably in Worcestershire, are singularly grateful to my right hon. Friend for the award of £54 million, would he say up to what point this award was measured in terms of increasing costs—was it to the end of July, or to the end of June or to the end of August?—because costs are still rising very fast?

Mr. Prior: It was not related to costs either incurred or likely to be incurred, but it was considered by the Government to be a boost to agriculture, taking into consideration the very high market prices, particularly in cereals, and therefore in feeding stuffs. We shall have to look at the year as a whole at the end of the year.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, whereas certain sectors of the industry certainly benefited from the increases which he announced, other sectors certainly did not—for example, the poultry industry? Increasing costs will result in an increased price of poultry meat. What action is he taking to assist these sectors to keep food prices down?

Mr. Prior: When the right hon. Gentleman had my position, he deliberately put back on to the open market the whole question of eggs. I have continued with the same policy as he adopted.

Agricultural Production

Mr. Charles Morrison: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proposals he now has for increasing agricultural production; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he proposes to announce his plans for increasing farm production at home in order to save imports; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Prior: The Government are committed to selective agricultural expan-

sion, and the recent adjustment to guaranteed prices was an indication of our resolve.

Mr. Morrison: When does my right hon. Friend intend to introduce the new system of agricultural support?

Mr. Prior: There is a Question on the Order Paper shortly dealing with that.

Mr. Mackenzie: Will the right hon. Gentleman continue to allow Danish bacon to be imported at the present high level?

Mr. Prior: In the last year the amount of Danish bacon imported has fallen and British production has risen. I should like to see British consumers eating more British bacon.

Mr. Hooson: But is the Minister not aware that, at present, if farmers depended on the market alone for their beef and lamb prices and on import control, they would be in dire trouble, and that it is only the subsidy which is maintaining the prices for the farmers?

Mr. Prior: This depends entirely on the level at which the minimum import price alone is assessed.

Agriculture (Support)

Mr. Strang: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will now make a statement on the changes he intends to make in the present system of Government support for agriculture.

Mr. Peter Mills: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will introduce an import levy scheme for cereals;

(2) if he will introduce an import levy scheme for dairy products.

Mr. Farr: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he intends to introduce to enable beef producers to obtain a profitable return from the market.

Mr. William Price: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a further statement on the future of agricultural subsidies.

Mr. Prior: It is Government policy to change the present system of support. We


are telling our principal overseas suppliers of our intention to introduce at an early date higher minimum import prices for cereals and new levy schemes for beef, mutton and lamb and milk products other than butter and cheese. We propose to carry out the necessary negotiations with our suppliers as quickly as possible. We shall also be consulting the domestic interests concerned.

Mr. Strang: Assuming that the Government's proposed new lack of support policy for agriculture will contain both target prices and fall-back guarantee prices, will the Minister give an assurance that the level of the fall-back guarantee prices will not be fixed at a level less than the present guaranteed prices? I am sure that he would agree that that is a very reasonable assurance to seek, since target prices will be fixed higher than the present guaranteed price levels.

Mr Prior: There is no question of any lack of support in the Government's proposals for agriculture. I think that farmers will have a good deal more confidence in our policy than they had in the policy of hon. Gentlemen opposite.

Mr. Mills: I welcome what the Minister said, but is it not absolutely essential, particularly with milk, that he gets on with this task as quickly as possible, since the dairy farmers could find a reduction in their income, particularly if there is any cut in welfare and school milk?

Mr. Prior: That, of course, is another question. However, as for negotiating a levy system for minor milk products, we will get on with that straight away.

Mr. Farr: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, despite the recent very welcome increase in the price of beef, there is still a tendency among fatteners to sell winter fodder off at the very high present level of prices and not fatten cattle at all? What will he do about that?

Mr. Prior: It is hard to please everyone. Since the announcement of the increase in prices, the market for fat cattle and store cattle has improved considerably.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the very important question of my hon. Friend the Mem-

ber for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang)? He failed to give an answer to a question in which every farmer in the country is interested. Second, now that he is embarking on these very important negotiations, would he say whether, if they fail, the Government are proposing to impose the levies unilaterally?

Mr. Prior: There is no question of these negotiations failing. The Government are determined to make this change. I want to make it plain that that is Government policy. On the fall-back guarantees, we have agreed that the present system should last through a transitional period of not less than three years. During that period, we shall be consulting the whole industry to see what new system can be brought in.

Brucellosis

Mr. Brewis: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proportion of herds is now free of brucellosis; and whether he will make a statement on the progress of the eradication scheme.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Anthony Stodart): 5·1 per cent. of British herds are already accredited and a further 5·6 per cent. are qualifying under the present voluntary schemes. I do not want to be unduly optimistic but the initial response to the new incentives scheme has been very encouraging, and 80 per cent. of accredited herd owners have opted for it. Plans are under way for next year's compulsory eradication programme, and the Milk Marketing Boards have started screening tests to assist in determining the initial choice of area.

Mr. Brewis: Is my hon. Friend aware that many people consider that this disease is more prevalent now that it was five years ago? Will he take the bull by the horns and bring in immediately an area eradication scheme for brucellosis?

Mr. Stodart: If we are to tackle this scheme properly, it is essential not only to take several bulls by the horns but also to plan this so that we have a sufficient reservoir of stock. To go in for mass compensation rather than a planned area scheme would not fulfil what we want to do.

Food Prices

Mr. Janner: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will now take steps to prevent further rises in the prices of foodstuffs produced in Great Britain.

Mr. John Fraser: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what notifications have been made to him of increases in food prices, and what action he has taken on them.

Mr. Eadie: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what further steps he intends to take to protect consumers from further food price increases.

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action he has taken since 18th June to hold down food prices and in respect of which commodities; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. William Price: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action he proposes to take to halt rising food prices.

Mr. Bagier: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he has taken to control the increase in the price of food for housewives.

Mr. Judd: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on how many occasions since 24th July he intervened to prevent increases in the retail price of food; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Prior: None, Sir.

Mr. Janner: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the hardship which is caused by the recent increase in food prices, especially for old people and for housewives, in great cities such as Leicester? Will he indicate when the Government propose to redeem their election pledge to hold down food prices?

Mr. Prior: I am aware that food prices have risen. I am also aware of the cause for it, and I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite will take the blame.

Mr. Fraser: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that over 3,000 food prices have risen since 18th June, and that by

abandoning the early warning system under the Prices and Incomes Act he is actually encouraging increases in prices?

Mr. Prior: There is another Question on the Order Paper about food prices which have risen in the past four months and I shall be answering that a little later on. As far as the early warning system is concerned, all I can say is that by shopping around—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—yes, and by using her good commonsense, the housewife can do much to bring down prices. I may also say that greater competition between traders and manufacturers can do more than all the outpourings of the Prices and Incomes Board.

Mr. Eadie: The Minister must be aware that Members of Parliament are being inundated with complaints from constituents about rising food prices, but is he aware that there is evidence before his Ministry that in the new towns in Scotland, the new town of Livingston in particular, in my constituency, the increases of food prices are even worse than they are elsewhere?

Mr. Prior: I cannot answer for the hon. Gentleman's constituency—

Mr. Eadie: I have written about it.

Mr. Prior: —but when we come to a later Question on the Order Paper he will find that some of the facts he has been uttering are not true.

Mr. Pavitt: In view of the fact that the Minister and the Government have completely abdicated all responsibility for these rising prices, will the Minister now appeal to his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to take away from his Ministry the whole responsibility for food, because he cannot serve two masters at the same time?

Mr. Prior: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman had better try to understand one fact, and that is that average earnings are up this year by 12 per cent. and production is up by under 1 per cent., and that is a recipe for price increases and disaster if ever I knew one.

Mr. Bagier: Would the Minister not agree that his reply to this Question was very unfavourable compared to his answer on Question 3, when he said that farmers have much more faith in this


Government than the last? This is understandable. Would he not now agree that, having gained the housewives' votes, his policy has sold them down the river?

Mr. Prior: Any increase in prices which has so far taken place has nothing to do with the introduction of minimum import prices or a levy scheme.

Mr. Judd: Is the Minister aware that his answers are really not good enough? Is he really telling the House that after the whole of 13 weeks of recess he has not taken a single step to implement the pledges solemnly made by his party's leader to the electorate in the last General Election, and is he saying that he has no greater concern than this for the people on limited incomes and with low incomes when Conservative leaders have constantly been protesting concern for them up and down the country?

Mr. Prior: We shall welcome every assistance from all parts of the House to make the British nation understand that if they go on paying themselves a lot more for the work they are doing then prices are bound to go up.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Does the Minister realise that he is giving a series of totally unsatisfactory replies? Is he saying that he has completely forgotten the promise made by himself and his right hon. Friends during the election that they would hold down the prices of food? Does he realise that the people have completely lost faith in the Government, that he has let the housewives down? He and his party won the election on a false prospectus. Will he now return to a system of scrutinising increases in food prices and, where necessary, referring those increases to the Prices and Incomes Board, which was the policy that was successful over a long period of time for investigation?

Mr. Prior: If the right hon. Gentleman really believes that his party's policy was successful I am surprised that they lost the election. In fact, prices of food and the cost of living index have been going up more rapidly in the last six years than at any time since 1951. Quite apart from that, in the last year alone the increase has been 7·1 per cent. and the right hon. Gentleman knows who was responsible for that.

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make a statement on changes in food prices over the past three months.

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food by how much food prices have risen since 1st July, 1970.

Mr. Lipton: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to what extent food prices have increased since 18th June last.

Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on changes in food prices since 19th June, 1970.

Mr. Prior: The Food Index fell from 141·6 on 16th June to 140·6 on 22nd September, the latest figure available.

Sir G. Nabarro: Would my right hon. Friend make it abundantly clear that there cannot be any end to the increase in retail prices generally till the Government strike at the root of inflation, which is excessive public expenditure? Would he not agree that a switch to import levies will make a dynamic contribution to a reduction in public expenditure?

Mr. Prior: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Lipton: While having already achieved the blackest results in the shortest possible time by any Minister of Agriculture there has ever been, does the Minister really think that he and his Government can persuade the housewives by his "phoney" answers today that food prices have gone down?

Mr. Prior: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has failed to do his homework. He should not try to get out of it by statements like that.

Mr. Boyden: Does not the right hon. Gentleman really think his party has deceived the public, not only by his feeble idea of getting the housewives to shop around, but by his policy which is aimed at putting food prices up?

Mr. Prior: I am well aware that food prices have fallen in the last four months. This is usual at this time of year for seasonal reasons. But, of course,


the country has in the next few months got to face up to the very severe cost inflation of the last few months and last two years, and we have a very serious problem ahead of us. I do not underestimate this problem at all. On the question of my policy for agriculture, all I can say is that we shall be reducing Government expenditure, we shall be affording additional help to those who need it, and the rest can look forward to tax reductions in due course.

Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: The Minister may be convinced but he has certainly not convinced my wife, or, I am sure, thousands of other people, that prices have come down. Will he say how he proposes to deal with what to many of us is one of the biggest rackets, and that is the hidden increases in food prices through short weight in cereals and biscuits, and so on? If he is not prepared to take any action about direct food prices will he do something about those hidden food prices?

Mr. Prior: No. There is absolutely no difference here from allowing the market to work. Cereal prices throughout the world are running at a much increased level compared with a year or two ago, and we have to put up with it.

Mr. Buchan: Why does the right hon. Gentleman try to keep up the pretence that he is concerned about keeping food prices down when in the House he has asserted that the people of this country have been molleycoddled too long with cheap food and that prices should rise? It is precisely his own policy which is happening.

Mr. Prior: I do not wish to continue with a policy of subsidising food.

Hon. Members: Oh!

Fishmeal

Mr. W. H. K. Baker: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will now make a statement concerning the increase in home-produced fishmeal.

Mr. Stodart: Home production of fishmeal has remained fairly stable over the last five years, at about 85,000 tons per annum.

Mr. Baker: Will my hon. Friend reconsider the arrangement whereby only

10 per cent. of small fish are now allowed to be landed under the present arrangements, and would he agree that a great number of small fish have wastefully to be returned to the sea, and that if more were allowed to be landed it would help with the supplies of fishmeal?

Mr. Stodart: I think that this is largely a question of balance, because if industrial fishing were extended along the lines my hon. Friend suggests I think we should require to locate extra sources of suitable species to provide raw materials all the year round. It seems to me a mistake to do this if it would cause us to import more fish.

Egg Authority

Mr. W. H. K. Baker: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he will announce the names of the chairman and other members of the Egg Authority.

Mr. Prior: It was announced on 20th October that Mr. A. R. Collingwood, T.D., and Mr. J. F. Phillips, O.B.E., had been invited to be Chairman and Deputy Chairman respectively, and my right hon. Friends and I are grateful to them for agreeing to serve. The names of the other members will be announced as soon as possible.

Horticultural Produce (Marketing)

Mr. Blaker: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what further proposals he has for improving the marketing of horticultural produce.

Mr. Stodart: Marketing is primarily a matter for those commercially involved. We should only be ready to consider new proposals for Government action if it could be shown that there was no alternative.

Mr. Blaker: Does the Parliamentary Secretary agree that improved marketing provides scope for improving the return to growers and that this will be particularly important if we go into the Common Market? Are not the Government studying further methods of encouragement?

Mr. Stodart: Considerable encouragement has been given for some time, with a concentration on improving marketing. We would do well to reflect that less than


10 per cent. of horticultural goods are marketed in a co-operative way and that, therefore, continuity of supplies is very difficult. I would be ready to think along these lines.

Lettuce and Tomatoes (Import Tariffs)

Mr. Blaker: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is satisfied with the present level of tariffs on imports of lettuce and tomatoes; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Stodart: The existing tariffs provide a measure of protection for home growers. It remains open to them to apply to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry for changes in the rates of duty. But the policy of the present Government, like that of their predecessors since the statement made by Mr. Christopher Soames on 27th November, 1963, is to reduce the horticultural industry's dependence on the tariff.—[Vol. 685, c. 276–81.]

Mr. Blaker: Does the Parliamentary Secretary agree that most of the specific tariffs on these goods were set as long ago as 1953 and that their effectiveness has been severely eroded by inflation? If an application were made to the Minister, would he invite his right hon. Friend to regard it sympathetically?

Mr. Stodart: This is obviously a matter which could very properly be put to my right hon. Friend, and I would strongly advise my hon. Friend to put it.

Mr. Dalyell: Are the Government aware of the anxiety felt by the glasshouse industry in the Clyde Valley about the possible dumping by Rumania and Bulgaria of cucumbers and tomatoes, and what will be done about it?

Mr. Stodart: If there is any question of dumping, and if the industry will produce a reasoned and factual case, I would strongly urge it to go to my right hon. Friend with it.

White Fish Authority

Mr. McNamara: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will now make a further statement on the future of the White Fish Authority.

Mr. James Johnson: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what meeting he has now had with the Chairman of the White Fish Authority; and what decision he has made about the future organisation and finances of the authority.

Mr. Prior: I have already undertaken to make a statement about the White Fish Authority before the end of the year. I met the Chairman on 13th August, when we had a preliminary discussion of this and other aspects of policy.

Mr. McNamara: I am grateful for the Minister's undertaking to make this statement by the end of the year. May we hope that as a result of the conversations and tours he has been making in the recess he has improved his earlier impressions of the White Fish Authority and that we shall see it strengthened and expanded?

Mr. Prior: I know that the hon. Gentleman takes a keen interest in this matter. I have seen the work done by the White Fish Authority in Hull during the recess. I do not want to be drawn into giving any more information about the authority at this stage.

Mr. Johnson: If the White Fish Authority is to continue, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has discussed the possibility of a successor to Sir Charles Hardie? The industry thinks that he is an able administrator, but he has many, many directorships, including one with B.O.A.C. We feel that there should be another man in the post. Also, in view of the Government's policy about moving offices out of London, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has considered shifting the premises of the White Fish Authority to the capital of the fishing industry—Hull?

Mr. Prior: Without being drawn into a discussion about what is the fishing capital, may I say that all the points which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned are under consideration. I do not wish to be drawn into further discussion at the moment.

Mr. Wall: Has my right hon. Friend considered the amalgamation of the White Fish Authority with the Herring Industry Board?

Mr. Prior: That is another aspect which is being discussed.

Hill Sheep

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he is taking following his study of the position of the livestock industry to improve the conditions of hill sheep farmers.

Mr. Stodart: My right hon. Friend announced on 6th October that the Hill Sheep Subsidy is to be increased by 7s. 6d. per head for the 1970 Scheme year to provide direct help for hill sheep farmers. He also announced that 1½d. per lb. was to be added to the guaranteed price for fat sheep for 1970–71. This will benefit the sheep sector as a whole.

Mr. Boyden: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many hill farmers in my constituency sold a great many sheep before the increase in prices and that the benefit of the increase went to lowland farmers, who were a good deal better off? Would the hon. Gentleman consider this problem of the hill farmers and do rather better?

Mr. Stodart: I take the hon. Gentleman's point, which has not escaped our attention. However, the hill sheep subsidy has been increased by 30 per cent., which is not a bad balance. To have driven the flocks back to the hills has been no policy at all; the prosperity of the low ground sheep sector is essential for the prosperity of the hills. This is what we have tried to do.

Beers (Gravity)

Dr. Gilbert: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will take steps to compel brewers to disclose the gravity of their beers; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Stodart: No, Sir.

Dr. Gilbert: Is not the Minister aware that the brewers claim that their products sell on flavour and not on strength and, therefore, there is no reason why this information cannot be disclosed? Even bearing in mind the close relations which the Government clearly have with the brewing industry, could the hon. Gentleman say how much longer beer drinkers have to put up with drinking products

the contents of which they are unaware of?

Mr. Stodart: I do not think that this is a matter for legislation; it is a matter for contractual arrangements. There has been very little change in gravity in the last several years. I think that most people would associate gravity with alcoholic strength, but it has nothing to do with it.

Mr. Tom Boardman: Does my hon. Friend realise that gravity has no direct relationship either to the cost of production or, as he has said, to the alcoholic content?

Mr. Stodart: Yes, Sir.

Fertiliser Prices

Mr. Farr: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what consultations he has had with fertiliser manufacturers in relation to price increases made after assurances given to the contrary by the manufacturers.

Mr. Stodart: The assurances which the principal manufacturers gave in March related to list prices and I am satisfied, from the consultations which our officials have had, that they have been honoured.

Mr. Farr: Is my hon. Friend aware that the feeling persists that by cutting rebates and discounts manufacturers have put up their prices to quite a marked degree to the detriment of the customer?

Mr. Stodart: There is a distinct difference, which is not always realised, between a rebate and a discount. Rebates have been maintained as well as the list prices. Discounts have not been maintained because of the different circumstances prevailing last year as opposed to the previous year. But, if it is any consolation to my hon. Friend, I should like to point out that prices are not up nearly as much as they were originally thought to be.

Agricultural Expansion (Credit)

Mr. David James: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will take steps to ensure that sufficient credit facilities are made available to finance agricultural expansion.

Mr. Stodart: Agriculture is already among the industries that have priority for bank lending for productive investment, and the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation has funds available to meet longer-term needs.

Mr. James: While I am sure that will console my farming constituents, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that many farmers will have real difficulty in financing next year's crop, let alone agricultural expansion?

Mr. Stodart: If I may give my own experience on this matter, my own credit facilities are a great deal better at this moment than they were, in my view entirely due to the change of Government.

Mr. Mackie: Is that due to the Minister's new salary or to his farming propensities?

Mr. Stodart: It is certainly not due to the first suggestion.

Sir H. Harrison: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that the best way the Government can help farmers and other industries is by restoring the economy and confidence in the £ and bringing down interest rates?

Mr. Stodart: Yes, Sir.

Agricultural Incomes and Wages

Mr. David James: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will take steps to enable both the income of farmers and the wages of agricultural workers to reach a level sufficient to prevent the movement from agricultural to other occupations.

Mr. Prior: The Government are committed to selective agricultural expansion. The industry's continuing rise in productivity should enable it to achieve this notwithstanding some further decline in the labour force.

Mr. James: Will the Minister bear in mind the fact that in Dorset, which is a wholly agricultural constituency, with 4,700 farms and holdings and with only 4,300 agricultural workers, of whom 498 are youths aged under 19, the drift from the land because of the greatly increased industrial wages elsewhere makes it increasingly hard to carry out tasks like fencing and ditching?

Mr. Prior: I realise that there are problems, but it is a great credit to the agricultural industry that it has been able to increase its productivity rate as much as it has.

"Strategic Plan for the South East"

Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what consideration he has given to the references to agriculture in paragraphs 4.17 to 4.19 and figures 16 and 35 in the Government report, "Strategic Plan for the South East", published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Stodart: This report has been published to allow an opportunity for consultation and discussion with interested parties, and I would ask my hon. Friend to await the statement of the Government's collective views which will be made in due course by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.

Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: Has the hon. Gentleman noticed that protection against encroachment on agricultural land apparently is to be given only to areas of special quality? In these circumstances has he noticed that there appears to be no such land in the county of Sussex?

Mr. Stodart: In my view there should be the greatest economy in land utilisation, and where land is earmarked for future development its farming should be prejudiced as little as possible. I will take note of the point my hon. Friend has raised.

Agricultural Marketing Boards

Mr. Carter: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will encourage the present system of agricultural marketing boards.

Mr. Stodart: Where boards are in the public interest: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Carter: I welcome that reply. Would the Minister agree that this is inconsistent with his previously declared intention of non-interference with the market forces in agriculture?

Mr. Stodart: One must balance the advantages of the boards. They provide producers with stability, they enable production to be increased, and thereby help the balance of payments.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: Would the hon. Gentleman give the House a categoric assurance that the operation of these boards will in no way be inhibited in the event of our entering E.E.C. on the present provisions of the Treaty of Rome?

Mr. Stodart: This is an important matter for negotiation. I can certainly say that many of our boards have the admiration of members of the Community.

Agricultural Production and Distribution

Mr. Carter: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if it is his policy that competition should be encouraged throughout agricultural production and distribution.

Mr. Prior: Yes, wherever appropriate.

Mr. Carter: When one has in mind the answer to the previous Question, is it not true to say that Government policy is to give the highest possible income to farmers while at the same time imposing the maximum cost on the consumer?

Mr. Prior: No, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — LEGAL ADVICE SCHEME

Mr. Greville Janner: asked the Attorney-General if he will take steps to increase the availability of legal advice to those who require it.

Sir Elwyn Jones: asked the Attorney-General when the scheme for legal advice and assistance recommended by the Legal Aid Advisory Committee will be implemented.

The Attorney-General (Sir Peter Rawlinson): The Legal Advice (Amendment) Regulations, 1970, which came into operation on 1st August, improve the financial condition on which legal advice is available. Further improvements in the Legal Advice Scheme must take their priority in the general context of the need to keep down public expenditure.

Mr. Greville Janner: Meantime, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman consider making funds available to assist in the setting up of more neighbourhood law centres such as that which exists and works so well in Notting Hill?

The Attorney-General: I appreciate the importance of the hon. Gentleman's point. Nevertheless, I must also consider public expenditure and the need to contain public expenditure.

Sir Elwyn Jones: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree with the statement of the present Lord Chancellor that the advisory scheme to which my Question refers fills an admitted need and with the view of the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee that the scheme requires urgent attention because otherwise a large proportion of the public will continue to be deprived of a solicitor's services? Is not the right hon. and learned Gentleman's most disappointing answer a precursor of the reactionary package about which we shall be hearing shortly?

The Attorney-General: The right hon. and learned Gentleman will have to await what is to come in a few minutes. Advice is important, but legal aid also is important. The legal aid provisions were improved only very recently and the new provisions will come into effect in November. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows, we improved on the principles which were agreed by the previous Administration. There is no call for an immediate reply to the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

Oral Answers to Questions — COURT ACCOMMODATION, LONDON

Sir Elwyn Jones: asked the Attorney-General what steps are being taken to increase court accommodation, particularly for the trial of criminal cases in London, in view of the shortage of such accommodation.

The Attorney-General: The shortage of court accommodation is a real problem. It will be assisted by legislation implementing the Report of the Beeching Commission. Meanwhile my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor is doing everything he immediately can to relieve the situation. In London six additional temporary courts are being made available within seven months, and a further six in the following 12 months. We are also using spare accommodation at the Royal Courts of Justice for criminal trials.

Sir E. Jones: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that those proposals are quite inadequate? Will this ill-considered scheme of economy hold up the fulfilment of an urgent public need?

The Attorney-General: As the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows, the Beeching legislation will give better control of the lists and distribution of the case loads and will greatly improve the situation concerning the shortage of court accommodation. It is hoped that legislation will be speedily brought into force. In the meantime, I ask that local authorities should assist by making accommodation available. But not all ordinary accommodation is of the kind which can be used for criminal trials. I assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that every step will be taken to make sure that cases are not delayed when it is possible to provide courts.

Mr. W. T. Williams: Does the Attorney-General appreciate that the problem in London, although serious, if of general application? Will he give us some indication when it is likely that the Beeching proposals will be implemented? It is a scandal that men are being kept in prison while awaiting trial, sometimes for many months.

The Attorney-General: I appreciate what the hon. and learned Gentleman says about the delays which have occurred and which do occur. I hope that whenever possible accommodation will be provided by local authorities. If any Members can assist by getting their local authorities to help in this respect we would be very grateful. But we must also take into account staffing of the courts, which is quite a problem. I appreciate the importance of the matter.

Dame Irene Ward: Would my right hon. and learned Friend please tell what I presume is his "shadow" what difficulty I had when he was in my right hon. and learned Friend's position in trying to get some additional courts for Newcastle-upon-Tyne? Therefore, the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) should not make the kind of statements he has made today.

The Attorney-General: I appreciate what my hon. Friend has said. The right hon. and learned Member for West Ham,

South (Sir Elwyn Jones) is now free of inhibitions, and the value of his comments can be assessed by the House.

Oral Answers to Questions — RHODESIA

Mr. Strang: asked the Prime Minister when he proposes to meet Mr. Ian Smith.

Mr. Wall: asked the Prime Minister what recent communications he has had from Mr. Ian Smith; and what proposals he has for settling the dispute with Rhodesia.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): I have received no communications from Mr. Smith and have no plans for a meeting with him. But we intend shortly to approach Mr. Smith to ascertain whether a basis for real negotiation within the Five Principles can be found.

Mr. Strang: Will the Prime Minister give the House a categoric assurance that in the negotiations which his Government have been conducting with the South African Government since June of this year no discussion whatever at any level has taken place about the future of Mr. Smith's illegal régime?

The Prime Minister: Yes; we have not discussed with the South African Government future negotiations with Mr. Smith.

Mr. Wall: Would my right hon. Friend accept that any possible meeting would have to be very carefully prepared? Would he also accept the principle of parity between the races as a possibility of negotiation?

The Prime Minister: I have stated on many previous occasions the basis of the negotiations. The reason for making this approach to Mr. Smith is so that any possible future negotiations should be thoroughly prepared.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY

Mr. Marten: asked the Prime Minister what proposals he now has for visiting Brussels.

Mr. Sheldon: asked the Prime Minister if he will now seek to visit Brussels.

The Prime Minister: I have no plans to go to Brussels at present.

Mr. Marten: If my right hon. Friend does go to Brussels, will he stress to the Common Market countries that when our negotiator called for a six-year transitional period for agriculture he meant what he said and that any retreat from this would be unacceptable?

The Prime Minister: If I were to go to Brussels, I would consider what I should say there. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is at this moment negotiating with the Six in Luxembourg and will report to the House when he gets back.

Mr. Sheldon: Does the Prime Minister consider that any economic consequences on entry disadvantageous to this country can be dealt with in the context of transitional arrangements?

The Prime Minister: I should have thought that the whole House accepted that the transitional arrangements had a very great importance to any permanent arrangement which we make, whether industrial or agricultural.

Mr. Jay: Could the Prime Minister say plainly whether the Government are or are not in favour of this country joining the political federation towards which the Common Market is now rapidly developing?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is making an assumption which many people do not accept.

Mr. English: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on the recent discussions he has had with Commonwealth and European Free Trade Association Prime Ministers regarding the British application to enter the European Economic Community.

The Prime Minister: I have had a number of such exchanges. We are keeping our Commonwealth and E.F.T.A. partners in close touch with progress in these negotiations.

Mr. English: Has the Prime Minister had discussions with Commonwealth representatives since the publication of the Werner Report on the possible implications that that would have for relations between this Government and Commonwealth Governments?

The Prime Minister: I discussed these matters with some Commonwealth Prime Ministers and E.F.T.A. Prime Ministers in New York. That was after the publication of the Werner Report. However, none of us had had an opportunity to study it, and it did not arise in the discussions.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOUTH AFRICA

Mr. Wall: asked the Prime Minister what recent discussions he has had with the Prime Minister of South Africa about the Simonstown Agreement and other matters; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: None, Sir.

Mr. Wall: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his stand for British interests. When does he expect to be in a position to make a statement and a final decision on South African arms?

The Prime Minister: As the House knows, we have been carrying on consultations with individual Heads of the Commonwealth and Commonwealth Ministers. These are not yet concluded. When they are concluded, we shall be able to consider it further and make a statement.

Mr. Healey: Could the Prime Minister assure the House that he has no intention of negotiating any new obligations for Britain under the Simonstown Agreement, and could he say whether the South African Government have asked for new obligations to be accepted by Britain? Secondly, on the question of arms supply, will he accept that it cannot be in Britain's national interest to take a decision which is opposed by all our allies, by the overwhelming majority of the Commonwealth and by all the United Nations? Could he assure the House that he will take no positive decision on this matter until the Commonwealth Prime Ministers have met and have been able to consider the matter collectively?

The Prime Minister: In regard to the first part of the question, involving the nature of the Simonstown Agreement, the right hon. Gentleman must await a statement to the House. In regard to the last part of the Question, the Government will make a statement to the House at the appropriate time when they have reached


a decision. In regard to the second part, I do not accept the basis of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, but if that is his view, perhaps he would like to explain later on why he himself supported the policy of the sale of arms, why he then allowed himself to be overruled by his colleagues and why now, so shortly after going into Opposition, he apparently has completely changed his mind?

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMONWEALTH (MINISTER'S SPEECH)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister if the public speech made by the Secretary of State for Scotland in Edinburgh on 19th July concerning the future of the Commonwealth represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Hamilton: Does the Prime Minister recall that on that occasion the Secretary of State for Scotland talked about enlarging and extending the spiritual and moral happiness of the peoples of the world, presumably through the aegis of the Commonwealth? Will he give us an undertaking that he is doing all that he can to preserve the unity and happiness of the Commonwealth and that he will not pursue any policies which are in line with those recently announced by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell)?

The Prime Minister: The Secretary of State for Scotland on that occasion was reading a message from the Commonwealth Games Churches Committee, and I support the theme of that message. My aim has been to carry out the wish that the hon. Gentleman has expressed. I think that we and most members of the Commonwealth take the view that if we are to achieve this purpose there must be respect in individual Commonwealth countries for the views of other members.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL LIST

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister if he will now move to set up a Select Committee to inquire into the Civil List and related matters.

The Prime Minister: I have no statement to make on this subject.

Mr. Hamilton: Does that mean that there will be no reference to this in the statement to be made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer after 3.30 cutting public expenditure? If and when the Prime Minister sets up the Committee, will its terms of reference be sufficiently wide as to enable us and the country as a whole to discover exactly what is the total income of the Royal Family and what is and what is not taxable?

The Prime Minister: I compliment the hon. Gentleman on his ingenuity, but I cannot anticipate my right hon. Friend's statement. As for the terms of reference of the proposed Select Committee, there are ample precedents, but the final decision lies with the House itself, which has to vote the terms of reference of the Select Committee and its membership.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is my right hon. Friend aware that we shall bear in mind the Question asked by the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) when the hon. Gentleman next asks for a rise?

The Prime Minister: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take note of that statement, whether it be a promise or a threat.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMPETITION (GOVERNMENT POLICY)

Mr. John Fraser: asked the Prime Minister how many letters he has received since 18th June, 1970 on Her Majesty's Government's policy in relation to competition.

The Prime Minister: While the precise number could only be established at disproportionate cost, it is unlikely to have exceeded a dozen.

Mr. Fraser: On the issue of competition, is the Prime Minister aware that, despite competitive policy, every petrol price went up within about an hour of his speaking on competition last time, that cigarette prices, where there is competition, are going up this week, and that 3,000 food prices have gone up since 18th June? Would he refer the centre pages of today's Daily Mirror to his inter-disciplinary circus with a view to seeing what difference competition can make to that?

The Prime Minister: I am aware of what the hon. Gentleman is referring to, but I am surprised that he has the nerve to mention it in this House when his Government deliberately encouraged a policy of wage inflation, the consequences of which are now being seen.

Oral Answers to Questions — SPORTING EVENTS, SCOTLAND (OFFICIAL VISITS)

Mr. Douglas: asked the Prime Minister if he intends making official visits to sporting events in Scotland in 1971.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Douglas: Will the Prime Minister consider placing on his itinerary some golfing lessons, as I understand that it is a very humbling game and might be useful to him, in view of the recent happenings at No. 10, in cementing good Commonwealth relations? Will he also consider placing on his itinerary a visit to Hampden Park with a view to persuading the powers which control that stadium to make better facilities available in the interests of the best football public in the world?

The Prime Minister: I understand that golf is a subject that was studied by a previous occupant of No. 10, but it does not seem to have led to great success.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED NATIONS (PRIME MINISTER'S VISIT)

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement about his visit to the United Nations Organisation.

Mr. James Johnson: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement regarding his official visit to the United Nations.

Mr. Barnes: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statment about his official visit to the United Nations in New York.

The Prime Minister: I addressed the Commemorative Session of the General Assembly on 23rd October. I had discussions with the Secretary General, the President of the General Assembly, and

the Secretary General of U.N.C.T.A.D. I was also able to have informal talks with a number of leaders of both Commonwealth and other Governments.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is it not a refreshing change from the last Administration that we now have a spokesman for this country who can defend British interests and British independence as being fully compatible with international peace and security, which is the professed object of the United Nations?

The Prime Minister: I appreciate my hon. Friend's point of view.

Mr. Johnson: In view of the unhappy meeting with Kenneth Kaunda at No. 10, did the Prime Minister take an opportunity in New York to mend any fences by talking to Commonwealth leaders? Has he thought of asking the Defence Ministers of the Commonwealth to meet him about this obsession of his with the Soviet Fleet in the Indian Ocean?

The Prime Minister: There was no need for me to mend any fences in New York. As for the second part of the question, no proposal for a Defence Ministers' conference was ever put to me by any Commonwealth leader. It is understandable that it should not have been put to me by the unaligned countries, which would obviously find difficulty in a conference of Defence Ministers about the Indian Ocean.

Mr. Barnes: Will not the Prime Minister agree that apartheid is too difficult and explosive an issue for countries like Britain to talk about enlightened self-interest with so little thought to the consequences? Will not self-interest and independence be dearly bought if, for example, it gives a boost to the cold war in Africa?

The Prime Minister: The leaders of the Commonwealth to whom I have spoken so far have said without exception that they recognise that this Government has nothing to do with apartheid and are in no way racialist.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: While I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his pledge to the United Nations to reach the Pearson Committee aid target by 1975, can he say whether the Government have any special plans to supplement those of the late Government?

The Prime Minister: Again, I will not anticipate the statement which is to be made later by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. My statement that we would do our best to meet the target by 1975, including both private and governmental provision, was warmly received by all members of the Assembly in New York.

Mr. Maclennan: With regard to the suggestion of a Commonwealth Defence Ministers conference, is the Prime Minister saying that he was unaware that the proposal had been made and unaware that it was made by the delegate from Kenya at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meeting in Australia?

The Prime Minister: I was referring to the talks with Commonwealth leaders here and in New York. Surely that is the source from which one would expect an official suggestion of a conference of this kind.

Mr. Healey: Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the Indian Prime Minister gave him a serious warning about the implications for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference were he to decide to break the United Nations arms embargo on South Africa before the conference took place? In the light of that, will he undertake to take no decision before the Commonwealth Prime Ministers have had a chance collectively to consider the matter?

The Prime Minister: All my talks with Commonwealth leaders and Prime Ministers have, as always, been on a confidential basis. But I ask the right hon. Gentleman not to put forward statements such as that which he has just made, which do not have any foundation in truth. As for the second part of his question, the Government will make a statement when they consider it right to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions — WELSH OFFICE

Mr. Elystan Morgan: asked the Prime Minister if, in view of the Secretary of State for Wales' undertaking the work of a party political appointment, he will now appoint an additional junior Minister to the Welsh Office.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir.

Mr. Morgan: Will the Prime Minister accept that, while it may or may not be that the Welsh people are impressed by the extra-curricular activities of the Secretary of State, there is a deep feeling that the number of Ministers in the Welsh Office should bear some relationship to the number in the Scottish Office, and that the transfer of educational functions to Wales calls for this to be recognised?

The Prime Minister: I will consider what the hon. Gentleman says. I would have thought that he would welcome the fact that we have been able to pass further responsibility to the Secretary of State for Wales. On the other hand, the position is not exactly comparable to that in Scotland, which has its own legal system and various other attributes which Wales has not. At the moment, I am satisfied that the present arrangements will work but, naturally, if representations are made to me I will consider them.

Mr. Hooson: Was the Prime Minister of the view that the Secretary of State for Wales was so underworked that he could afford to relieve him of his responsibilities to attend to the job of being Chairman of the Conservative Party?

The Prime Minister: I have not relieved the Secretary of State for Wales of any of his responsibilities. It is customary in Governments of both parties that members of the Cabinet should hold party office. There is nothing unusual about that. It is possible for a Secretary of State to carry out certain political responsibilities, as it is for members of every Government and most members of the House.

Mr. John Morris: Can the Prime Minister tell the House how the Secretary of State apportions his work between that of Chairman of the Conservative Party, on the one hand, and Secretary of State, on the other?

The Prime Minister: Yes, I can. He carries out both responsibilities admirably.

Mr. George Thomas: Is the Prime Minister aware—we want to be perfectly fair to the Secretary of State—that we understand the difficulties of the Secretary of State for Wales in that he must give time to his English constituency and to his Conservative Party chairmanship and


that Wales has to put up with what time is left?

The Prime Minister: If the Secretary of State gets a little less sleep as a result, Wales ought to be grateful.

OIL TANKERS (COLLISION)

Mr. Crosland: Mr. Crosland (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will make a statement on the shipping accident off the Isle of Wight and of the resulting threat of oil pollution.

The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and President of the Board of Trade (Mr. John Davies): An explosion in the engineroom of the Liberian tanker "Pacific Glory", following a collision with the Liberian tanker "Allegro" on the evening of 23rd October, led to a serious fire.
Search and rescue operations were undertaken at once and the survivors were brought ashore at Portsmouth; 13 of the crew are presumed to have lost their lives in the explosion.
During salvage and firefighting operations under the control of the Navy, the vessel stranded on a shingle bank about 4 miles off the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight. During the weekend there was some escape of diesel oil from her bunkers and of crude oil from a damaged cargo tank. Tugs and naval vessels under the control of my Department succeeded in dispersing the oil before beaches were polluted.
Local authories in the area were alerted and have been standing by to deal with oil on their beaches, but this has not so far been necessary. Salvage of the vessel and her cargo is now being undertaken by a Dutch salvage company appointed by the owner, who will be working in conjunction with the Navy and with Shell, the vessel's charterer.
Officials of my Department are keeping in close touch with the salvors. There remans a threat of serious pollution if the vessel were to sustain further damage during attempts to refloat her, and vessels equipped for dispersing oil are continuing to stand by.
The causes of the collision between the two tankers and of the explosion on the "Pacific Glory" have not yet been established. Marine surveyors of the Department of Trade and Industry are carrying out a preliminary inquiry under the Merchant Shipping Acts. In the light of their report I shall consider what further action is required.
The responsibility for the organisation to deal with pollution of beaches rests with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. Since the incident involving the "Torrey Canyon" all the coastal authorities in the area have prepared contingency plans for dealing with coastal oil pollution. On Saturday, 24th October, my right hon. Friend asked that the nominated oil pollution officers in the area be contacted to ensure that their organisations were in a state of readiness and that their equipment capability was adequate to meet the immediate threat.
My right hon. Friend was encouraged by the assurances given and on his instructions an operations room in the Department of the Environment is manned on a 24-hour basis to receive reports on the risk of pollution of the beaches. By daily contact with local oil pollution officers the local authority capability for dealing with any actual pollution is being kept under constant review.
I should like to pay tribute to those concerned with containing the fire and the spillage.

Mr. Crosland: First, I warmly congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on what is, I think, his first appearance at the Dispatch Box. I should also like to associate myself and all my right hon. and hon. Friends with the tribute that he paid at the end of his statement.
I have three short questions.
First, since by far the most disturbing part of the incident was that the collision occurred in the first place, will he assure the House that, after the preliminary inquiry to which he referred, there will be an inquiry which is thorough, which is British, and the reports of which are published?
Secondly, do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say—I think that this


is implicit in his statement—that this event has at least shown that there has been an immeasurable improvement in our defensive measures against oil pollution since the "Torrey Canyon" disaster?
Thirdly, as the Government are rightly showing themselves responsible for the avoidance of pollution in this matter, would it not be a good thing if they also showed themselves responsible for settling the council workers' strike, which is likely to lead to pollution in many parts of the country?

Mr. Davies: On the first question, the rules provide that the inquiry is instituted by the country whose flag is borne by the ship, or ships, concerned. However, under arrangements which have recently been arrived at, it is possible for a country like ours to be involved in that inquiry. We shall be making our views known to the Liberian Government with a view to being so involved.
As regards the preventative measures available to us, I think that developments in the last few years have certainly added to the efficacy with which we can deal with these problems.
The third question is another matter entirely. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman will put down a Question on it.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: In joining in the sympathy which has already been expressed to the relatives of those who lost their lives and in the congratulations to my right hon. Friend, may I ask whether he will look again at the recommendations made in the last Parliament in the Report on Coastal Pollution by the Committee on Science and Technology and, in particular, whether he will examine why it is that a whole day of comparatively calm weather appears to have been lost already with a view to getting the oil out of the ship?

Mr. Davies: I will gladly look at the advice and recommendations made by that Committee.
A day has not been lost. It has been used to provide for the operations necessary to carry out the salvage work. I do not think that there has been any significant delay.

Mr. Thorpe: First, I wish the right hon. Gentleman well in his new-found empire and congratulate him on his

maiden appearance. I should also like to be associated with his congratulations to those who, with great gallantry, carried out very dangerous jobs with great success.
I should like to ask two questions. First, without going into this case, which is sub judice, is the Minister satisfied that international law is adequate to deal with cases of collisions which may be outside British territorial waters but none the less produce a pollution problem affecting our marine boundaries?
Secondly, since this race of monsters is now increasingly to be produced, may I ask whether the Minister has seen the criticisms of the Trinity House representative on the inadequate designs both as to lack of regulations about lighting bridges built at the stern and propulsion by single-screw propellers, which reduce in the first place, vision, in the second place, manoeuvrability, and in the third place, adequate indications to other vessels on the high seas?
Finally, if the Minister takes the view that they are inadequate, will Her Majesty's Government take the initiative in this matter?

Mr. Davies: My Department is certainly deeply involved in the development, on an international basis, of more satisfactory regulations to cover potential damage to our coast line. It is effectively involved in this topic at present.
My Department is also involved in questions affecting the design of ships. Indeed, it is instigating work in the spheres mentioned by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, as conditions permit.

Mr. Judd: Is the Minister aware that amongst people living in the Solent area there is the deepest possible respect for the determined and, at times, highly courageous action of those involved in containing the disaster?
With respect to the problem of getting the balance right in research on prevention rather than cure for incidents of this kind, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware of a certain degree of public disquiet about the amount of direct and indirect subsidy expected to be available from local authorities, national authorities and lowly-paid public service personnel who have to cope with the consequences of disasters of this kind?

Mr. Davies: I am conscious of the loyal and effective action of those concerned. I do not think that particular reference to a special series of people in relation to their rates of pay would be appropriate to a consideration of this issue.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Can my right hon. Friend be a little more explicit about recent modifications in practice and procedure in these matters to which he has referred? In particular, can he say whether they give this country any rights in regard to inquiries, or whether it is merely a matter of representation, in which the decision will rest with Liberia, having given such consideration as it will to the representations that we make?

Mr. Davies: A resolution adopted by the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organisation following the "Torrey Canyon" disaster provides for investigation into casualties, especially those involving oil pollution, to be undertaken by the flag Government with the participation of Governments of countries affected by the casualty. Consequently, this country, as a sufferer, or potential sufferer, has no specific rights, but we have means of pressure, which we shall certainly exercise.

Sir C. Taylor: Can my right hon. Friend say whether, if the danger of oil pollution increases, there will be no argument with local authorities on the south and south-east coasts about who will pay for anti-oil-pollution measures?

Mr. Davies: If costs are incurred in relation to pollution of beaches, the matter will be given sympathetic consideration by the Government. This situation has not yet arisen.

Sir M. Galpern: Is the right hon. Gentleman saying, in effect, that if, in the opinion of the Government, adequate steps are not being taken by the parties concerned to avert the possibility of pollution the Government are powerless in the matter?

Mr. Davies: No, Sir. I have said that the Government are not in a position where they can force another Government to undertake an inquiry. They can try to persuade one to do so, and this they will do. The containment of pollution is a matter for international understanding and discussion. Such discussion is now in course.

Mr. Farr: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the reason for the grounding of the "Pacific Glory" while under tow will be the subject of inquiry, as well as the major matter of the collision?

Mr. Davies: That is a matter for the preliminary inquiry which we are now undertaking.

Mr. Crosland: I must press the right hon. Gentleman on the nature of this inquiry. I understand the point about international maritime law under which the Liberian Government are bound to have inquiry of their own, but I believe that public opinion in this country will not be satisfied, whatever the niceties of maritime law, unless we have an inquiry which is thorough, which is British, and the results of which are published.

Mr. Davies: As I said, we have instituted a preliminary inquiry. That inquiry has certain rights, notably in relation to obtaining evidence from people who are present in this country. It has no rights in relation to commanding evidence from those who are not.

Mr. Murton: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether, when the Government are considering this grave problem, in particular in relation to navigation in narrow waters, he will bear in mind the great dangers which could arise should pollution take place in enclosed waters such as harbours, which might mean irreparable damage to the flora and fauna of those places?

Mr. Davies: Those considerations are very much present in the mind of my Department.

PUBLIC EXPENDITURE AND TAXATION

3.44 p.m.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Anthony Barber): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement on new policies for the public sector, public expenditure and related matters.
I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you and the House will accept my apologies for what, inevitably, will I fear be a somewhat lengthy statement. I hope, too, that you will permit me a little latitude to say that there are differing circumstances in which one right hon. Member takes over from another, but none could have been sadder than mine.
I think that in the House right hon. Members on both Front Benches will admit that they have experienced not only the responsibility but also the elation of accepting high office. On this occasion it was not to be so for me. Tributes have already been paid in the House to Iain Macleod, and I have paid my tribute elsewhere, but as I stand at this Dispatch Box I am very conscious of the unseen presence of the brave man whom I have replaced.
Her Majesty's Government have begun a fundamental reform of the rôle of Government and public authorities. Our object is to concentrate their activities and their expenditure on those tasks that they alone can perform; and to enable the individual citizen to keep more of the money he earns, have greater incentive to increase his earnings, and to have greater freedom in how he spends or saves his income.
The public services, thus redefined, will still have a vital rôle in the life of the nation. Yet they must be subject to firm control to secure economy and efficiency.
We intend to adopt a more selective approach to the social services. There will be increases in expenditure on the basic structure—schools, hospitals, payments to those in need. But we aim to confine the scope of free or subsidised provision more closely to what is necessary on social grounds.
Many arrangements which might have been appropriate a generation ago have

now been overtaken by economic and social progress.
The same principle will be applied by the Government in their relations with private industry. Government Departments and other bodies have spread their activities too widely, drawing in resources and skilled manpower which ought to be more productively engaged in private industry and commerce. Our object is to lessen Government interference and reduce Government subsidies; to extend the opportunities for profitable enterprise; to widen the area within which industry rather than Government will take decisions.
The review of Government activity and involvement will be a continuing process. The proposals announced recently by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on the reorganisation of central Government are designed to increase the efficiency of the whole public sector and to make the control of public expenditure more effective.
A thorough review of the functions of central Government Departments is now in hand. It is important that local authorities should approach their expenditure planning in the same spirit, and in the negotiations for rate support grant we shall assume that they will improve their efficiency.
The effect of the policies which have been applied in recent years is all too clearly seen in the way the national income has been used. In 1964, the public sector accounted for 44 per cent. of the gross domestic product. By 1969, that proportion had risen to 50 per cent.—exactly half our national output. In our view, this trend is unacceptable.
I now summarise the main policy changes resulting from our review. All the figures I give are in terms of 1970 prices and incomes.
I start with defence and overseas relations. In accordance with our election pledges, we intend to maintain a United Kingdom military presence in South-East Asia, as part of a five-Power defence agreement. We shall also be expanding the Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve, and taking various other steps to strengthen the country's defences. But defence, like all other public expenditure programmes, has been rigorously examined.
The House should know that when we took office we found that the long-term castings of the previous Administration's defence policy were considerably in excess of the figures which had been published in their last White Paper on Public Expenditure—Cmnd. 4234. Nevertheless, despite the Government's additional commitments, defence expenditure will be contained.
In 1971–72, it will not exceed £2,327 million at 1970 prices—the same figure, allowing for pay and price changes, as that published by the previous Government in their last White Paper on Public Expenditure—Cmnd. 4234. This is after taking account of the additional expenditure which must necessarily flow from the new commitments which we shall be assuming.
In 1974–75, defence expenditure will not exceed £2,300 million at 1970 prices. This will represent a net saving of over £130 million on the long-term costings total for that year. My noble Friend the Secretary of State for Defence will be giving fuller details in a White Paper to be published tomorrow.
The fee for a new passport will be raised to £5 and other related charges and consular fees will be increased. These measures will yield an additional £5–£6 million in 1971–72 and £6 million a year thereafter.
The previous Administration provided for an expanding programme of overseas aid up to 1973–74 as further steps towards the U.N.C.T.A.D. 1 per cent. target. Our policy is to maintain that programme and to continue the progress to £340 million in gross cash terms in 1974–75. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced last week in the United Nations that we will do our best to reach the 1 per cent. target by 1975, in the expectation that private flows will be able to make a substantial contribution.
I come next to industry. Public expenditure on trade, industry and employment—excluding investment grants and excluding the nationalised industries—is at present costing about £650 million a year. Much of this should be provided by industry itself and not by the taxpayer.
We will wind up the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation. After meeting

existing commitments, a sum estimated at £20 to £30 million, which otherwise would have been drawn in 1971–72, will remain undrawn. Of even greater consequence, this decision will mean that we shall avoid a liability to find up to an estimated £40 million extra a year which would otherwise have been incurred in the years ahead.
The regional employment premium costs about £100 million a year. We do not regard it as a sufficient stimulus to regional development to justify its cost. We will continue the arrangements made by the previous Administration to maintain these payments up to September 1974, but they will be discontinued from that time.
Further economies will be made in expenditure on support for industry. These economies will rise to about £70 million in 1974–75. This will affect a wide range of activities, existing or planned. Throughout this field we shall apply strict criteria as to what are proper functions and activities for the Government to carry out or finance, and what should be eliminated, reduced or undertaken by industry itself.
The scheme of grants and loans to hotels will be brought to an end when it reaches the time limit under existing legislation. Commitments under the existing scheme will be honoured, and will be in excess of the previous forecast. There will be a new limited scheme of assistance to tourism projects in the development areas. There will also be additional expenditure on other selected activities, including new industrial training projects. The grant to the British Productivity Council will be phased out, and that to the Consumer Council will be discontinued.
Public expenditure on the research councils is now running at £110 million a year, and is rising at the rate of 5 to 6 per cent. a year in real terms. This programme will be cut by £2 million in 1971–72, rising to £5 million in 1974–75. This field of expenditure is now being critically reviewed to establish whether activities are being carried on which might more appropriately be financed by industry, and whether there is duplication of effort.
Next I come to agricultural support. We intend to introduce a system of import levies so as to improve the method of


agricultural support and reduce the cost to the taxpayer. This involves international negotiations. We hope that the result of these negotiations will have a beneficial effect on the agricultural support bill as early as 1971–72, but it is too soon to be precise about the amount of the savings for that year. They could be substantial.
In the longer run we expect to make a major saving on the deficiency payments of the order of £150 million by 1974–75. In addition to this the Exchequer will also benefit from the proceeds of the levies themselves.
Existing plans for the capital expenditure of the nationalised industries would require about £1,600 million next year, rising to about £1,900 million by 1974–75. These estimates now appear too high by £25 million and £50 million respectively, after considering latest estimates of shortfall. We shall save £30 million in 1971–72 and £10 million in 1974–75 by not proceeding with nationalisation of the ports.
Furthermore, the programmes of the nationalised industries have been examined afresh and the consequent savings will result in an additional reduction of the total programmes by £42 million in 1971–72, rising to £73 million in 1974–75.
I come next to housing. The present system of subsidies, rents and rebates will be entirely refashioned. Instead of the present indiscriminate distribution of subsidies, help will go where it is most needed. My right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for the Environment, for Scotland and for Wales will shortly give a full account of the Government's proposals. They will also be undertaking the necessary consultations with the local authorities.
By the middle years of the decade this reform will be transforming housing finance and should lead to a saving in public expenditure of £100 to £200 million a year as compared with the level of expenditure which would have flowed from the policies in operation when we took office.
There is scope for saving on the capital expenditure programme of local authorities, for instance, by reducing the part played by local authorities and new towns in financing commercial and industrial development outside development areas;

I am counting on £10 million a year from this source.
Expenditure on the main road programme, including motorways, is due to rise from £394 million this year to £552 million in 1974–75. There will be no change in the motorway and trunk road programme, but some other works of relatively low priority are being deferred. The allocations for capital works by local authorities on minor roads, where the general standard is good, will be restricted. More stringent criteria will be applied to new transport infrastructure schemes in cities.
As a result of these measures total expenditure on roads and transport will be about £13 million lower than previously planned for 1971–72, and £43 million below the figure implied in existing plans for 1974–75.
The level of grants to the railways for unremunerative but necessary passenger services is being reviewed. Among other measures the grants to the London area commuter services will be eliminated by 1973. This will reduce the level of grant by £10 million in 1971–72 and £15 million a year thereafter. Port modernisation grants are also being reviewed.
I now come to the social services. Here, we shall establish more sensible priorities. We shall expect that, where the user can afford it, he should bear more of the cost and the taxpayer less, but we shall give more help to those who need it. At the same time, we intend to add substantially to the resources devoted to the basic structure of the health, welfare and education services and to introduce a new social security benefit.
This shift of the burden from the general taxpayer to the user will be achieved partly by the abolition of subsidies and partly by new or increased charges, but with exemptions and better remission arrangements for those who are poor or who have special needs. Many services are subsidise to an extent which is unnecessary and out of date in our present society.
In the health and welfare field, cheap welfare milk, now subsidised by the taxpayer to the extent of 6d. a pint, will cease to be available: but the present arrangements for free welfare milk will continue unchanged.
We shall in due course introduce measures to relate prescription charges more closely than now to a proportion of the cost of the individual prescription, but with a ceiling on the amount of the charge: in the meantime, the existing flat-rate charge will be raised to 4s. per prescription item, the arrangements for exemptions remaining the same.
For ophthalmic and dental services, tests and examinations will continue to be free, but charges for dental treatment will be related to approximately half the cost of the service actually provided, and charges for spectacles will be increased so as broadly to include the cost of dispensing: the present exemption arrangements will remain unchanged, except that in due course the upper exemption limit for dental charges for young people will be reduced from 21 to 18.
In the field of education, the charge for school meals, which is at present 1s. 9d., will be raised by two stages, next year and in 1973, towards the actual running cost, which is at present about 2s. 10d.
The supply of free milk to pupils over the age of 7 will be discontinued—

Hon. Members: Resign!

Mr. Barber: —although they will continue—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Barber.

Hon. Members: Disgraceful!

Mr. William Molloy: On a point of order—

Mr. Barber: —although they will continue to receive it until the end—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Point of order, Mr. Molloy.

Mr. Molloy: I should like to make the point that what particularly enraged some of us on this side of the House—[HON. MEMBERS: "Not a point of order."]—was the hilarity and the amusement of the Prime Minister at the announcement of a measure of which he and the Conservative Party should be thoroughly ashamed.

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order: that is a point of anger. Mr. Barber.

Mr. Barber: —although they will continue to receive it until the end of the summer term following their seventh birthday. However, pupils up to the age of 12 who have a medical requirement and pupils in special schools will not be affected by this change. The practical arrangements will be discussed with local education authorities.
We shall also discuss with those authorities, in England and Wales, increases, from next September, in the fees charged in further education establishments for non-vocational courses and for vocational courses for those already in employment: but we do not intend that there should be any tuition charge for students under 18 attending full-time courses.
Also, in common with most other countries and with the private sector, we shall introduce charges for admission to the national museums and galleries.
Finally, in the field of social security, we have concluded that higher wages and benefits together with better provision through sick pay and redundancy payments have rendered anachronistic the present arrangements under which flat-rate unemployment, sickness and injury benefit is paid for the first three days of absence from work, provided that the claimant is unemployed or sick for a period of 12 days or more. In future, no benefit will be paid for the first three days of absence. Legislation will be introduced to end this entitlement.
I have already mentioned the arrangements which will continue to exempt altogether large numbers of people from the social service charges, including people who are on supplementary benefit, and, of course, there is a system of refunds available for those who, though not exempt, are unable to afford the charges. In future, the gross income levels for entitlement to free welfare milk and to exemptions and refunds of the new charges will be raised by amounts up to about 30s. a week, so that the remissions will, in future, cover more families than before.
In this way we shall extend protection to those with incomes above the supplementary benefit level, but still too low to bear the increased charges. We shall also intensify Government publicity for the entitlements of those with low incomes,


to ensure that as many as possible of those who can properly claim exemptions and refunds, do in fact do so.
The timing of all these measures will depend on the completion of the statutory and administrative arrangements, including consultations where necessary, but in no case will any new or increased charge have to be paid before 1st April, 1971.
I come now to the other half of our policy for the social services. As I said earlier, having achieved savings by transferring more of the cost to those users of the services who can afford it, we intend to switch part of these savings, first, to giving more help to those who need it, for example through the higher remission limits, and, second, to improving the services themselves.
In the health and welfare field, we have decided to allocate, over the years 1971–72 to 1974–75, an additional £110 million to provide new resources for the further development of these services, including hospital facilities, particularly for the elderly and mentally handicapped.
In the field of education, in that same period, we shall provide for additional expenditure on educational building amounting to £28 million. This will enable local education authorities to make a substantial increase in their school building programmes for 1972–73, and, in particular—as we promised in our manifesto—to make faster progress in replacing and improving old primary schools.
In the field of social security, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services will tomorrow be introducing, as an immediate step in tackling family poverty, a Bill to provide a new cash benefit, to be paid from August, 1971, to be called the Family Income Supplement. This will be additional to existing family benefits, and will be paid to poor families with children where the wage earner is in full-time work, using a simple test of income. It will provide maximum benefit of £3 for the poorest families of all, tapering to a minimum benefit of 4s. at income levels roughly equivalent to supplementary benefit levels. Full details will be in the Bill.
In our election manifesto we declared that we would abolish the present scheme of investment grants and replace it with tax allowances or reductions.
Accordingly, investment grants will not be paid in respect of expenditure incurred after 26th October, 1970, unless the applicant satisfies the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry that the expenditure was incurred under a contract made by him on or before that date. Legislation will be introduced in due course.

Mr. Harold Wilson: After what date?

Mr. Barber: Expenditure incurred after 26th October, 1970, yesterday.
The ending of the investment grants scheme will yield substantial savings in public expenditure amounting to £670 million at constant prices by 1974–75, subject to the residual grant payments arising from existing contracts.
But the present level of company profits and liquidity makes it desirable that a large part of these savings should be channelled back to the corporate sector and this will be achieved through the tax system.
I believe that a system of depreciation allowances which permits a rapid write-off of expenditure on plant and machinery is the best way of encouraging effective industrial investment. For the country generally—I will deal with development areas in a few minutes—the new system of depreciation allowances will combine an improved rate of initial allowance with improved and simplified annual writing-down allowances.
Under the new system there will be a new first-year allowance which will enable 60 per cent. of the expenditure to be written off for tax purposes in the year in which the expenditure is incurred, and a standard rate of writing-down allowance which will enable 25 per cent. of the reducing balance of the expenditure to be written off successively in later years.
The new system will apply to expenditure incurred after 26th October, 1970, on plant and machinery, except for expenditure on motor cars not now eligible for initial allowance and on assets in respect of which an investment grant is paid under the transitional arrangements to which I have referred.
I also propose to simplify the rates of writing-down allowance for expenditure incurred before November, 1962.
In addition to concentrating as much as possible of the benefit of capital allowances at an early stage, these arrangements will represent a simplification of the present allowances system. Provisions to implement these arrangements will be contained in the Finance Bill, 1971.
In our manifesto we declared that there would be differential arrangements in favour of the development areas. To encourage the location and expansion of manufacturing industry in the development areas, certain forms of capital expenditure for industrial purposes in those areas incurred after 26th October, 1970, will receive free depreciation.
The assets covered will include immobile plant and machinery used in all forms of industrial processing, together with mining and quarrying, and construction and civil engineering.
Free depreciation will not apply where an investment grant is paid under the transitional arrangements. The service industries in development areas, together with mobile plant and equipment, will receive the new allowances I have already outlined for the country generally.
The House will remember that in this year's Finance Act the initial allowance for new industrial buildings and structures was raised to 40 per cent. in the development and intermediate areas, and 30 per cent. elsewhere, but that these increases were limited to the period of two years ending April, 1972. I have decided to retain indefinitely the 40 per cent. allowance for industrial buildings in the development and intermediate areas instead of allowing it to fall back to its earlier level in 1972 as this year's Finance Act provides.
On top of free depreciation for industrial investment in the development areas, we have decided on a number of measures to extend assistance to those areas by grants and loans under the Local Employment Acts. In particular, the rates of building grants will be raised by 10 points to 35 per cent. and 45 per cent. and greater use will be made of infrastructure schemes assisted by grants under these Acts.
We will proceed with these measures without delay, so as to give an early stimulus to growth in the development areas. The additional expenditure which they involve—

Hon. Members: Intermediate areas?

Mr. Barber: Certainly—is estimated to build up to £25 million a year.
The total value of all these differential arrangements is, as nearly as can be judged, no less than the total value of the differential arrangements at present in force. But we are confident that the new arrangements will prove more effective. We have thought it right to set these measures in train now, and we are, of course, continuing with our review of longer-term regional policies.

Mr. Marcus Lipton: What about income tax?

Mr. Barber: The hon. Gentleman keeps asking about income tax; I am dealing only with corporation tax.
The termination of investment grants, except in respect of existing contracts, will apply to ships as to other assets. Capital expenditure on ships will retain the free depreciation which it already enjoys, but on 100 per cent. of the cost of a new ship instead of on the cost net of grant. Ships will, in fact, along with capital equipment for scientific research, be the only assets which will qualify for free depreciation outside the development areas.

Mr. James Callaghan: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman in the middle of his statement. However, in reply to a question, he used the word "certainly" at a point which was most important. He was asked whether the allowances which he was enumerating would be given to intermediate areas and his answer was "Certainly". Did he mean that?

Mr. Barber: I was referring to the decision which we have taken to retain indefinitely the 40 per cent. allowance for industrial buildings in the development and intermediate areas. I thought that the question referred to that; my answer was certainly intended to be directed to that point.
The proposals I have outlined will have implications for the proposed farm capital grant scheme and the horticultural improvement scheme on which my right hon. Friend will be making a separate statement. The rates of grant for fishing vessels which were increased when investment grants were introduced will revert to


their previous levels. Free depreciation for fishing vessels will continue.
The Government will be discussing with the Northern Ireland Government the implications of these changes for matters within their responsibility.
I now sum up the results of all the changes of policy which I have outlined to the House.
The net effect on the public expenditure plans for the next financial year, 1971–72, as they stood and were costed when we took office, is a reduction of about £330 million.
Some of the policy changes require extensive consultation and negotiations and time will, therefore, be needed to work out their full implications for expenditure in later years. But so that the House may have some measure of their significance, I should tell the House that by 1974–75 the total reduction in public expenditure which we expect from these changes is nearly £1,600 million, including the saving from the abolition of investment grants. After allowing for the increased tax allowances for industry which I have announced, there will be a net saving to public funds of nearly £1,100 million.

Mr. Lipton: What about income tax?

Mr. Barber: I wish that the hon. Gentleman would not keep calling out "What about income tax". I am now dealing with another aspect.
This means that our plans will be achieved within an average annual rate of growth in public expenditure, excluding investment grants, between 1971–72 and 1974–75 of 2·8 per cent., as compared with a rate of 3·5 per cent. which previous plans would have implied.
Two White Papers which will be available in the Vote Office when I sit down summarise the public expenditure results for 1971–72 and 1974–75, and the proposed changes in capital allowances for industry. Further detail for the whole period will appear in the next annual series of White Papers on Public Expenditure.
This statement has been concerned primarily with public expenditure and taxation, but I must also refer briefly to another matter with which I will deal

at greater length if, Mr. Speaker, I catch your eye in the debate which, I understand, has been arranged for next week.
In the period ahead, it will be necessary for a firm grip to be maintained on the growth of money and credit. I will not detain the House further with this now. But I want there to be no misunderstanding about our resolve to take the necessary measures to this end.
The changes which I have announced and which will now progressively be put into effect will mean that, instead of facing the depressing need to increase tax rates to finance the public expenditure programme, we can now look forward to the prospect of tax reductions.
So far as companies are concerned, both the C.B.I. and the T.U.C. have expressed to me their concern about the prospective level of investment; and it is the case that the trend of company profits has been downwards, and that in some sectors there is an inadequate cash flow.
It has been suggested that the most effective way of dealing with this situation would be to reduce company tax liabilities which will generally fall due on 1st January next. These liabilities arise in respect of trading profits of the financial year 1969 for which the rate of corporation tax was fixed in this year's Finance Act at 45 per cent. I propose to reduce the rate to 42½ per cent. This will be the first reduction in the rate of corporate taxation for 11 years.
In cases where corporation tax for the financial year 1969 has already been paid at the old rate of 45 per cent., this reduction will be put into effect by way of repayment in due course. The net result of this reduction will be to improve the financial position of industry and commerce by £60 million this financial year and £90 million next year.
Before I sit down, I had better respond to the hon. Member who keeps calling out, "What about income tax?".
I am very conscious that it is now 11 years since there was a cut in the standard rate of Income Tax. I have this afternoon announced a reduction in public expenditure which will total £330 million in 1971–72. As a consequence—and all my colleagues share the credit for this—I have decided that, with effect from the earliest practicable


date, 6th April next, the standard rate of income tax will be cut by 6d.
The House may remember that, when a change in the rate of income tax is made in an April Budget, it takes between two and three months before the change is reflected in the pay packet. In order, therefore, to ensure that tax deductions can be made at the new rate from the very beginning of the next income tax year a short Bill will be introduced next week. The same Bill will make provision for the cut in corporation tax.
A cut of 6d. in the standard rate will cost the Exchequer about £315 million in the first year and £350 million in a full year.

Mr. Ted Leadbitter: Who gets it?

Mr. Barber: All people who pay income tax.
The reduction in income tax and the reduction in public expenditure, taken together, will, therefore, be broadly neutral in their effect on demand in 1971–72.
It is, as I have said, 11 years since there was last a reduction in either the rate of corporate taxation or the standard rate of income tax.
I believe that the whole House will agree that it is right to take action to break out of the depressing cycle of high taxation and low growth which has bedevilled our country in recent years. These measures are designed to give the nation new impetus, new opportunity and new hope for the future.
My right hon. Friends and I ask for the support of the House.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Despite the somewhat excitable atmosphere in which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer finished his statement, I will begin by echoing what he said about the sadness of his succession. We all feel the loss of Iain Macleod.
We appreciate the difficult circumstances in which the right hon. Gentleman succeeded to his present office and we wish him well, on personal grounds at least, though if he goes on as he started this afternoon he must not expect an entirely uncontroversial period of office.
Perhaps I should begin by thanking the right hon. Gentleman for confirming nearly all the leaks about expenditure cuts about which we have read in the Press for at least the last two weeks.
The Chancellor made a statement which was long, complex, at times very depressing, at times mean in its approach and at times, if I may say so, deliberately vague and difficult to follow. [Interruption.] Indeed it was.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: On a point of order. Is there a Question before the House, Mr. Speaker? Are we beginning a debate? Is it not the convention of the House that only questions are asked after a statement has been made?

Mr. Speaker: I imagine that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) will come to his questions. We have, of course, had an unusually long statement.

Mr. Jenkins: I shall try to put my observations at least in an interrogatory form, though occasionally, in circumstances such as this, it takes a little time to put one's questions.
It will be well within the recollection of the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) that it is usual, after a 40-minute Government statement, for the Opposition spokesman to be entitled by convention to a little latitude. This convention was certainly observed by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite when they were in opposition.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Further to my point of order. To make sure that we can preserve the procedures of the House, may I ask you to give a Ruling, Mr. Speaker, about the present position? Is is not a fact that following a statement a speech cannot be made—in other words, only questions can be put—unless there is a definite Question before the House? Should not the right hon. Gentleman confine himself to asking questions, otherwise will not our whole procedure be unable to work?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sure that the whole House is grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his points of order and for trying to preserve the procedures of the House. I remind him that that is my task.

Mr. Jenkins: Is the Chancellor aware that parts of his statement were difficult to follow? [Interruption.] I gather from that interruption that hon. Gentlemen opposite are telling me that I have already said that. I though that in view of the two interruptions that I have had from the hon. Member for Peterborough, I would remind the House of the position we had reached before I was interrupted.
The right hon. Gentleman's remarks were difficult to follow because of the differing time periods to which he referred; and that to some extent was exacerbated by his actions, as when, for example, in debating the savings on housing subsidies, he was rather vague and referred to figures of between £100 million and £200 million, though clearly, whatever the figure, it must be a mammoth and swingeing saving. He dealt with it on a yearly basis. When, however, he was dealing with increased expenditure on the Health Service and education he dealt with it on the basis of a four-year period, so that he could boast of a large figure for additional school building, amounting on average to £7 million a year.
Is not the right hon. Gentleman also aware that there was nothing in what he said to show that this is an immediate situation with which he is dealing? He does not have to shift resources into the balance of payments; push resources one way or the other. He is not dealing with an immediate situation, but—as is the entitlement of the Government, as a deliberate matter of choice—is making room for tax cuts. Is he not aware, therefore, that he must expect to be adjudged, as I believe he will be, by who pays the bills and who gets the benefits?
I have four short, specific questions to ask the Chancellor. First, on investment grants and the switch to allowances, will he confirm that this is to an overwhelming extent book-keeping, except in so far as the new system may be more or less effective? How much is he proposing to save by a cut from one to the other? The answer was certainly not made explicit. How much of this saving will come from development areas? Can he also say whether development areas will be exempt in these changes in so far as railway line closures are concerned, about which he spoke?
Secondly, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the puny scheme for family income supplements in no way fulfils his predecessor's promise of 10s. extra per "fam with claw" at a net cost of £30 million, a promise which was given on the second day of the Budget debate this year and which was confirmed by the Prime Minister in a letter to the Child Poverty Action Group during the election campaign? Why is the right hon. Gentleman and the Prime Minister reneging on that election promise, too?
Thirdly, on school and welfare milk—cheap welfare milk—may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to say how much he has calculated—he must have made this calculation—consumption will be reduced as a result of this change?
Has the right hon. Gentleman calculated what effect this will have on dairy farmers' incomes? Will there be any compensating payment and will he therefore present this saving to us in realistic terms, beginning by telling us what will be the cut in consumption? If he does not do that, this change in policy will be as meaningless as it is objectionable.
Fourthly, how does the package begin to square with the Prime Minister's statement two days before the election that he and a Conservative Government would, if elected, act directly on prices? Or is the right hon. Gentleman going to claim that he will act directly—to put them up? That is the effect of nearly everything we have heard today.
We have heard of a tax cut—indeed, of two tax cuts—which will be of benefit certainly to some people; one of the cuts definitely will be—but what we have also heard from the right hon. Gentleman represents a whole future programme of tax increases—[Interruption.]—for that is what the charges amount to. It is the payment, not the method, which counts.
What this programme amounts to is a whole future programme of tax increases for the great majority of the people. It is imposed in a form that is inflationary, regressive and, at best, irrelevant to our problems, and in many cases it will exacerbate those problems. In so far as the promises and policies are unjustified, as we believe many of them to be, we shall oppose them at every stage, because we reject the petty dogmatism and


short-sighted materialism on which so many of them are based.

Mr. Barber: First, to answer the right hon. Gentleman's question about development areas, he will see—I believe that he will agree with this when he sees the figures involved—that the differential in cash terms is at least as large as the differential which existed under the previous Administration. [Interruption.] But we believe that it will be much more effective. The right hon. Gentleman will be the first to agree—the facts establish this—that from the point of view of growth in the development areas the system of investment grants has not lived up to its expectations.
Next, I made no reference whatever to any closures of any uneconomic lines. [Interruption.] I said that there were certain necessary but unremunerative lines and I went on to say that we were reviewing them. I then announced, because I thought it was courteous to the House to do so, the decision that we had taken.
The right hon. Gentleman questioned me next about family allowances. Of course, I considered very carefully whether the best way of dealing with the problem of family poverty at present was by means of family allowances. We concluded, however, that the family income supplement—I will explain why we reached this conclusion—was a better way, for the present at least, to carry out our declared intention to help these families.
To increase family allowances without clawback would, the right hon. Gentleman will agree, be extremely expensive. [Interruption.] It was not suggested by the right hon. Gentleman or my right hon. Friend who preceded me at this Box that it should be without clawback. For consideration was the question whether one should increase family allowances with clawback. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman may disagree, but if the Prime Minister will wait a moment—[Laughter.]

Mr. Lipton: Only slightly premature.

Mr. Barber: After all, the Prime Minister—[Laughter.] In view of the words used by the Leader of the Opposition when he was Prime Minister, at the time of the General Election, about the strength of the economy, nobody will

take very much more notice of what he has to say.
I return to the serious question of family poverty. To increase family allowances with clawback would not be effective because it would bring into tax so many of the families which it would be intended to help. The family income supplement, on the other hand, will give more help to more poor families and, in particular, will bring help for the first time to first and only children.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite will see that this is so when they have an opportunity to read the Bill which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services will be introducing tomorrow. I believe that they will reach the conclusion that, in our present circumstances, this is by far and away the best means of dealing with the immediate situation.
Of course, in introducing this new method as an immediate step, we will look closely at the whole problem of family support and we shall consider the extended use of family allowances. This remains a possible approach to the problem and I assure the House that we shall study it further. Hon. Gentlemen opposite will see, when they look at the Bill, that what we propose is a better way of dealing with the situation at present.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: What is the cost of this method compared with the scheme which his predecessor promised?

Mr. Barber: The cost of this scheme is £8 million a year—[Interruption.] The cost of family allowances with clawback would, of course, depend on the level, though all I can tell the right hon. Gentleman—I am sure, in fairness, if he looks into the position, that he will agree with this—is that since his tax change in his last Budget it is extremely difficult now to help those people in the poorer families whom we all want to help.
I was then asked by the right hon. Gentleman about a statement made shortly before polling day to the effect that action would be taken to break the price spiral. The answer is that a statement was made based on the assurances of the previous Government about the so-called strength of the economy. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I was asked a serious question and I will give a serious answer.
The statements of the present Leader of the Opposition, when he was Prime Minister, about the strength of the economy, have been shown, as I say, to be entirely false. In those circumstances it would not have been right to have reduced taxation without achieving economies in public expenditure.
I grant the right hon. Gentleman this. If, of course, the economy had been as strong as the right hon. Gentleman boasted at the time, then there would certainly have been good arguments for a newly-elected Government to take immediate action to break the price spiral through a reduction in direct taxation, but the right hon. Gentleman knows as well as anybody that those were not the circumstances.
There may be some effect on milk consumption. I believe that one has to look at the situation and decide whether it is right for families who can afford to pay these charges to be subsidised by the general taxpayer. I do not believe that it is right.

Mr. R. H. Turton: While congratulating the Chancellor on the clarity of his announcement and the balanced nature of his proposals, may I ask him to give the House an estimate of the share of the gross domestic product that will be taken by the public sector in 1974–75, when his changes are complete, and to say how that proportion compares with that of all our main industrial competitors?

Mr. Barber: That depends upon a variety of factors. It would not be right for me to go beyond the figures that I have given and which are undisputed, namely, that the public sector accounted for 44 per cent. of gross domestic product in 1964 while in 1969 it accounted for 50 per cent. As a result of the changes which I have announced the annual average rate of public expenditure has been reduced over those years from 3·5 per cent. to 2·8 per cent.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: Is not the linkage of prescription charges to the value of the medicine prescribed, a new and totally regressive feature which will be highly complicated to administer? Can the right hon. Gentleman say what it will yield?
Turning to the abolition of milk for children of 7 and upwards, up to the

limit at which his predecessors abolished it, can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the advice of the Department's medical committee on the aspects of food was sought and, if so, with what result?
As to the nationalised industries, are they likely to be allowed to raise money on the public market and what is the Chancellor's view on the stimulation of employment in development areas in the light of these new policies?
Finally, since the right hon. Gentleman is so anxious to give value for money, may we take it that East African Asians whose passports were devalued in the previous Parliament will not be expected to bear the full increase of cost?

Mr. Barber: A number of these points are matters which we will deal with in debate. The reason I thought it courteous to the House to make this statement was because there are a number of provisions in it, which I have set as briefly as I can to cut the length of the statement and because I thought it right that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen should have an opportunity of considering the details to make more meaningful the debate which will follow.
The proposals relating to prescription charges will save £19 million in 1971–72 and £35 million in 1974–5. The right hon. Gentleman will recognise that children under 15, people over 65, expectant mothers, war disabled, those exempted on financial hardship grounds and other categories—and for the time being the existing range of exemptions—will be exempted.

Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne: My right hon. Friend referred briefly to the need for effective credit and monetary policies. Would he not agree that so far the guidelines laid down by the former Chancellor and confirmed by my hon. and right hon. Friends have been blatantly disregarded by the Bank of England? Would he not agree that effective control of Government spending, although it may be a necessary adjunct to effective monetary policies, is no substitute for these policies?

Mr. Barber: As this statement is concerned almost entirely with public expenditure and taxation I deliberately kept what I had to say to a few sentences and


made it clear that I would deal with it at length in the debate. This is a subject which can be better dealt with in debate rather than by question and answer.

Mr. Stanley Orme: While the right hon. Gentleman says that he did not make any remarks about the effect that this statement will have on the general wages situation, is he aware that the distribution of wealth he has talked about will fall to a large extent on the average industrial worker who will have to pay increased rents, increased school milk, and so forth?
Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that this will bring tremendous pressure from semi-skilled and skilled workers to ensure that they do not fall behind? Does he realise that they will take action to redress this by making wage applications which will make the current situation seem like a tea party? What will he do when that happens?

Mr. Barber: I do not believe that it will have this effect. The intention of the proposals I have outlined is to ensure that the country's economy grows at a faster rate than it has been growing.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Stupid as well as vicious.

Mr. Barber: I agree with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) who, in his Budget speech of 1969, said:
… whatever the evidence or lack of it, high direct taxation is widely believed to be a disincentive, and … this could have a stultifying effect upon the development of the economy."—OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th April, 1969; vol. 781, c. 1031.]

Mr. Peter Emery: Does my right hon. Friend realise that the great success of his statement is in direct ratio to the annoyance that it creates on the benches opposite?
May I ask two questions? Do the alterations to investment allowances and the depreciation allowances cover the tourist and hotel industry? Can he give the number of taxpayers who will benefit from the reduction in the standard rate of income tax?

Mr. Barber: As to the first question, I think it would be preferable for my hon. Friend to look at the details which are set out in a White Paper. They are

to some extent complicated. I would not want to make any off-the-cuff statements and mislead the House.
With regard to the question about the number of taxpayers who will benefit as a result of the cut in the standard rate, I am sorry to tell my hon. Friend that I did not ask the Inland Revenue about this because the number alters.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: Will the right hon. Gentleman say, first, whether the increase in remissions of 30s. applies to increased charges such as prescriptions and school meals, or only to new charges, as the statement says?
Will he say, secondly, whether we are correct in assuming that the family income support scheme will cost £8 million as compared with the £25 million which the right hon. Gentleman is pledged to give back to infant incomes at present not allowed to be disaggregated from parental income—which is a very strange comparison because it affects far fewer people?
Will the right hon. Gentleman also say whether we are correct in assuming that he has made no statement at all about a possible increase in supplementary benefits for old people who will be very much affected by what he has said about council house subsidies?
Lastly, will the right hon. Gentleman say how he can possibly justify what he has done in the light of the pledge given by the Prime Minister, which I will read to the House:
'We accept that the only way of tackling family poverty in the short term is to increase family allowances and operate the 'claw-back' principle."?

Mr. Barber: The position, very simply, is that to help the poor families we have to try to find the best means of getting financial assistance to them, to those who really need it. This is what we are trying to do. I beg the hon. Lady to wait until she has seen the Bill which will be introduced tomorrow by my right hon. Friend.
Without prejudice to the possibility of using at some other time the idea of family allowance with claw-back I believe that when she looks at the Bill carefully she will come to the conclusion that in present circumstances, bearing in mind the present tax ratio, these proposals are the best way of helping these people.
Arrangements will continue to operate to exempt altogether large numbers from charges including those on supplementary benefits—and including the increased charges. There is, as the right hon. Lady knows, a system of refunds for those who, although they are not exempt, are still unable to afford the charge.
With regard to these arrangements, the gross income levels for exemptions and refunds will be raised by up to 30s. a week and, therefore, as I think I said in my statement, the remissions will cover more families that they do at present.

Mr. Iain MacArthur: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the new depreciation allowances will be available to all service industries in the development areas? If this is the case, will he also recognise that there will be the widest possible welcome for this new approach to the service sector? Is it his intention, in view of the importance of the service industries in themselves, and as generators of industrial growth, to give further encouragement to the service sector in due course?

Mr. Barber: We always have taken the view that it was wrong to differentiate generally when dealing with service industries. Certainly, the depreciation allowances which I announced will apply to the service industries. When I have any statement to make about future policy I will make it.

Mr. Dan Jones: On a point of order. Would the Minister reply to my hon. Friend who asked a question about the old people and supplementary benefits?

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is not a point of order. It is just repeating a question.

Mr. Joel Barnett: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us how this abominable statement, increasing the cost of living for so many and reducing taxation by perhaps a 1s. a week for an average worker to a maximum of 3s. for the average industrial married worker, will help to increase economic growth? Would he not agree that the major problem is getting increased industrial investment?
Would he confirm that it is much worse than my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Stechford (Mr. Roy

Jenkins) said—it is much worse than bookkeeping? Would he not agree that for most companies what he is doing is switching from investment grants, not to investment allowances but to depreciation, which means that for the life of a particular asset of a company there would be no improvement whatever? Would he confirm this is the case and that, therefore, he is reducing liquidity for most companies even with the 2½ per cent. cut in corporation tax?

Mr. Barber: The net injection for companies as a result of what I have announced will be an additional £60 million in this financial year which undoubtedly will have a considerable effect, or at any rate a significant effect, on their liquidity. In the next financial year it will be £90 million.
As for the cut in income tax, I can only say that I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman does not like it. I believe that most people will like it. I recognise that it is not the policy of his party because it was almost exactly this time of the year in 1964 that one of the very first actions of the Labour Chancellor was to increase the standard rate of income tax by 6d. At least today we have brought it down. I believe that this is the right way and I believe that the whole House would agree that we could not go on as we have been doing over these past four or five years.

Sir Gerald Nabarro: Is it not a fact that the Chancellor has today implemented precisely what he promised and what every Tory candidate promised to do in the General Election—and within four months?
Will my right hon. Friend apply himself to one omission from the statement? Is he aware that the largest exporting industry in Britain, namely, the motor industry, is in a parlous condition, with a declining home market for motor cars—92,000 less in the first eight months of this year as compared with the first eight months of last year? Is it the intention of the Government to make a separate statement about a stimulus to the motor industry in the early future?

Mr. Barber: I certainly do not have anything in mind about a statement about the motor industry at present. I will only say, in passing, that it would help a little to get that industry into the sort of condition which he and I, and the whole


House, would like it to be in, if it could do something about its industrial relations.

Miss Joan Lestor: Bearing in mind that the supplements for poor families will be interpreted as an aid to the bad employer, without any statement being made about what will be done in that respect, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that it is essential that those people entitled to the supplement should get it.
Has the right hon. Gentleman taken into consideration the fact that in almost every sphere in which people have had to apply for social benefit—rate rebates, rent rebates and, in future, assistance in the payment of school meals—many people entitled to assistance have not received it? Is this why the figure is so very low for family supplements?
With regard to the decrease of 6d. in income tax, may I inform the right hon. Gentleman that when the Labour Government increased income tax it was to pay for specific social benefits? If this 6d. decrease in my income tax denies children free milk at school, then as far as I am concerned the right hon. Gentleman knows what he can do with it.

Mr. Barber: I ask the hon. Lady to await the publication of the Bill which obviously will be debated before too long elapses thereafter. She will then see the significance of this proposal and the way in which it will help families most in need. At any rate, it is something of a change—and I hope that the hon. Lady will give me this credit—to have a cut in public expenditure accompanied by a cut in taxation.
The last occasion when there was a cut in public expenditure approaching this cut was in 1968–69, when there was a cut totalling £300 million. But in the 1968 Budget the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer put up taxes by £923 million.

Dame Irene Ward: Will my right hon. Friend the Chancellor accept that I have great confidence in him? May I ask two questions? First, as he did not say anything in his statement—[Interruption.] Do not be silly. Would my right hon. Friend let us know what he has in his mind—[Interruption.] You are an idiotic lot.

Mr. Speaker: Order. "You" includes Mr. Speaker. I am sure that the hon. Lady did not mean that.

Dame Irene Ward: Will my right hon. Friend say what is in his mind about selective employment tax? He did not refer to S.E.T. in his statement. [Interruption.] I have already said that I have the greatest confidence in my right hon. Friend, which I did not have in the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Would my right hon. Friend say something about S.E.T., because it is of great importance, particularly in my part of the country, and, indeed, in the rest of the country. In his statement—and it was difficult to take everything in—did my right hon. Friend announce that help would be given to people living on small fixed incomes whom it is very difficult to help?

Mr. Barber: I ask my hon. Friend to look at my statement. She will then see what I said about people who are at the lower end of the income scale. The answer to her question about S.E.T. is very simple. We gave a pledge to abolish it, and we shall.

Mr. Harold Wilson: Would the right hon. Gentleman be a little more gallant to his hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward)?

Dame Irene Ward: He need not be a little more gallant. He is always gallant.

Mr. Wilson: Then would the right hon. Gentleman be a little more forthcoming to the right hon. Lady? Since he has told us so much about his next Budget, did not the Prime Minister pledge that S.E.T. would be abolished—not reduced—in the first Budget? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes, he did. The facts are on the record, and I will produce them again. It was given on television on 2nd February last year. It is a fact. Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to carry out that pledge?
Secondly, since the right hon. Gentleman has told us what he will do about direct taxation, will he give an assurance that there will be no increases in indirect taxes in the forthcoming Budget to pay for it?
Thirdly, I thought that I heard the right hon Gentleman say that his plan was to cut housing subsidies by between


£100 and £200 million a year. I hope that I got that right. If that is so, will the right hon. Gentleman explain why, when earlier this year I suggested to his right hon. Friend that his policy would involve a cut of £100 million—the lower end of that bracket—all that the House was treated to was one of those fits of petulance mainly reserved for Commonwealth Heads of Government?

Mr. Barber: The right hon. Gentleman had better await the statement on housing. However, I made it clear that the expected saving by 1974–75 was in the region of £100 to £200 million. If the right hon. Gentleman will await the statement which will be made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, he will see that that is so.
What the right hon. Gentleman said about selective employment tax was a little odd, coming from him. I have not even—

Mr. Wilson: Answer the question.

Mr. Barber: I will.
I have not even spent 100 days in office as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The present Government have achieved a little more than the right hon. Gentleman achieved in his first 100 days.
The fact is that we are going to abolish selective employment tax. My right hon. Friend did not say that it would be abolished in the first Budget. What the right hon. Gentleman says comes ill from him after we have reduced taxation to the extent that I have announced today within a few months of coming into office when his Government, over the whole of their term, increased tax rates by about £3,000 million.

Mr. Edward Gardner: May I pursue the concern of the hon. Lady the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) about the old people? Will my right hon. Friend confirm, and is it not a fact, that the majority of the old people—those who stand in need of Government assistance—will benefit substantially as a result of these proposals?

Mr. Barber: I appreciate the views of people who are opposed to cutting income tax, but if one cuts the standard rate of income tax one can help only those people who pay income tax.
I have twice set out—briefly, it is true—our proposals for dealing with the poorer sections of the community—by raising the gross income level for exemptions and refunds, which will extend the area in which assistance can be given, and also as a result of the Bill which my right hon. Friend is to introduce tomorrow.
But if one is looking specifically at the position of elderly people I ask my hon. and learned Friend to bear in mind that over the four years there will be £110 million more than there was in the previous programme for health and welfare, including hospital facilities, particularly for elderly people. It will be for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services to decide, in conjunction with his colleagues, the best use to which this new finance can be put.

Mr. Frank Allaun: Does the Chancellor admit that this savage slashing of council house subsidies—great as the total is this year, £170 million—will mean not only a serious increase in council house rents, but, even worse, the virtual ending of all council house building except for the disabled and the elderly? Since most working people are dependent on council houses, how does the right hon. Gentleman square this with the Prime Minister's talk of one nation?

Mr. Barber: What we are doing is precisely what we said we would do in our election manifesto.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he need have no doubt that the nation will welcome and applaud his early implementation of election pledges?
My right hon. Friend made clear in his statement that where he was removing the grants to industry he was relying on firms to make up for them out of their own resources. While the £60 million reduction in tax this year will go some way towards that, contrary to the views of some of my colleagues who look at this matter from a theoretical point of view, will he bear in mind that if the bank squeeze is kept at its present level and in its present form many medium and small firms which will have to make up the difference simply will not be able to do so?

Mr. Barber: I ask my hon. Friend to look in due course at the White Paper on investment incentives giving the effect over the next couple of years, which is favourable to companies, of the proposals which I have put before the House today.

Mr. John Mendelson: On the question of the steep increase in prescription charges, which I hope the right hon. Gentleman regards as a serious matter, will he tell the House whether he initiated through one of his colleagues any inquiries into the incidence of the existing prescription charges on people in mining areas, in areas where there are many dust diseases and where large numbers of people do not come within the limits of any of the exempted categories he has mentioned and where people are already paying 7s. 6d. or 10s. a week for prescriptions, which will go up to 15s. or £1 a week—an imposition which many wage earners will not be able to afford? If the right hon. Gentleman made such inquiries, how did he have the face to come to the House and announce these increases?

Mr. Barber: If the hon. Gentleman would like to have details of the exemptions—and for the time being they will remain the same—I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services will send them to him. They cover about 40 per cent. of the population who are excluded from the payment of prescription charges. My approach to this subject is very much like that of the present Leader of the Opposition, who said about prescription charges:
What we decided—and this was our choice of priorities—was that it was still more important to maintain the essential fabric of the National Health Service, and particularly the hospital building programme."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th January, 1968; Vol. 756, c. 1977.]

Mr. Richard Body: Does my right hon. Friend realise that the new social security payment—the family income benefit—will fulfil an urgent need in areas like East Anglia, where wages have been abysmally low for the last six years?

Mr. Barber: I am sure that my hon. Friend will find that the Bill, when published, is helpful.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: Is the Chancellor aware that recently in a public speech the Minister for the Arts said that there might be a case for making charges for entry to public galleries and museums if they provided additional money for building museums and extending existing ones? Can he assure us that the money which he proposes to raise by this new imposition will be earmarked for that purpose?

Mr. Barber: I certainly could not give any such assurance.

Mr. Robert Adley: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that when the ports modernisation grants to which he referred at the beginning of his statement are reviewed no ports which have already put in proposals for such schemes will be subjected to retrospective action?

Mr. Barber: It would be best to await the outcome of my right hon. Friend's consideration. However, if my hon. Friend would like information in the meantime, it would be best for him to ask my right hon. Friend for it.

Mr. Robert Sheldon: Would the Chancellor state what the extra costs are of administering the family income supplement? Secondly, will he accept that the ending of the investment grants and the notion of replacing them by depreciation allowances is a step even further back from that which existed in 1963? At that stage there was an investment allowance system. So we have gone very far back along the road of reducing investment incentives well below the level operating in most countries in Europe today, and in certain other industrial countries, too. Does he realise the enormous significance of this?

Mr. Barber: The costs of administering the family income supplement will be in the Bill. As for the investment grants, the truth is that they have not worked. Since they were introduced in 1966, with high hopes of them by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, there has been a slower increase in investment in real terms than in the previous four years.

Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas: May I revert to the question raised by the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss)? While it is reasonable to


charge for admission to public galleries and museums—I presume the House of Commons is exempted—does the Chancellor realise that this would be much more acceptable to the public if it were coupled with an undertaking from the Government to increase the grants to museums and galleries in some way?

Mr. Barber: This question is obviously one which one has to consider in the same way as any other demands on resources which are available, but I believe that it is practicable and reasonable that people should make an honest direct contribution towards the services they receive. The fact is that most museums and galleries in advanced countries do charge for entrance and I hope that, on the whole, my hon. Friend will consider this reasonable.

Sir Myer Galpern: The Minister spoke of the need to strengthen the country's defences. Is he rejecting outright any responsibility for defending the health of our children, by his savage butchery of the school milk service, a service universally acclaimed as the greatest health-giving benefit? Does he realise that any niggardly saving he may achieve will be dissipated completely by a greater need for providing more medical services for those unfortunate children deprived of the school milk service?

Mr. Barber: I do not believe that the consequences foreshadowed by the hon. Gentleman will take place. He will recall that the Labour Government in 1968 withdrew free milk from secondary schools, and that there was a great outcry at the time. I do not think that it has had any adverse effect. I come back to the point I made earlier. Since many of these social services were introduced circumstances have changed, and I believe it is right that people who can afford to pay for some of these services or who can make a bigger contribution to them should do so.

Mr. Laurie Pavitt: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the only extra charges on the sick, disabled, blind, and those with pebble glasses, are those he has announced, and that the Government have no intention of making charges for visits by general practitioners or for hospital board and lodg-

ing or for diagnostic services in hospitals? On prescription charges, is there any intention of making any change commensurate with the 4s. and the 55s. season ticket for the chronic sick? Has the Chancellor borne in mind the fact that last year the Chancellor got only £14·8 million from this source, which was taken up by administrative expenses, and the fact that the prescription charge in 1969 more or less broke even?

Mr. Barber: We shall keep the so-called season ticket. Indeed, this is one of the very categories to which I referred before. We shall keep it. Whether it will be modified is a matter the hon. Member must ask of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services.

Mr. Denis Howell: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has just referred to what the Labour Government did over school milk. Does he appreciate that the Labour Minister of Agriculture was advised by his Department's nutritional authorities that in no circumstances should the Government take milk away from children in primary schools, and that, therefore, the Labour Government did not do so? What advice has the Chancellor taken on that this time—or is he just giving us his own off-the-cuff opinion? Secondly, how much does he calculate will be the amount of the average weekly increase in council house rents as a result of his proposals? Thirdly, no mention was made of the tax relief to owner-occupiers. It is very odd that council house tenants are to be asked to make this sacrifice while in the statement no mention at all is made about the £40 relief for owner-occupiers.

Mr. Barber: I know of no advice which was given to me that my proposals will have any significantly adverse effect on health. As for the council house rents and the proposals I have put forward, the hon. Gentleman must realise that this was clearly set out in our election manifesto. We said that we were going to do this, and it will be done, and it will be in conformity with our pledges.

Mr. Denis Howell: I did not ask whether it was in an election manifesto. I asked how much will the increase be. Can we please have an answer?

Mr. Barber: The hon. Gentleman will have to wait and see when the statement is made.

Mr. James Boyden: How much does the right hon. Gentleman expect to collect from increases in further education fees and charges through the national galleries? In other words, how much is this a contribution to the new "barbarous" society?

Mr. Barber: First of all, the galleries' fees are expected to bring in £1 million in a full year when fully implemented. As for further education fees, this will save £3 million in 1971–72 and £5 million in 1974–75. I think the hon. Gentleman will know that there are precedents for this sort of action concerning further education, but I carefully set out that there were certain categories who would not be affected by this, although I think it not unreasonable that they should make a modest contribution. After all, even with the proposals which I have put forward, on further education it is a very relevant factor that fee income will still be only 10 per cent. of gross cost, and that cost has risen very quickly. The hon. Gentleman knows a considerable amount about this side of our education services, and he will know that many taking training courses are helped by their employers for training in industry, and I do not think that that should be affected. Local authorities normally exempt students from education fees for full-time educational courses, and it is not intended to alter that arrangement.

Mr. Norman Tebbit: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the statement foreshadowing increased expenditure on social and educational services will be widely welcomed, but would he confirm that that money will be allocated by the local authorities in agreement with his right hon. Friend? Secondly, is he aware that it would give very widespread satisfaction, I am sure, to all hon. and right hon. Members if he would announce a scheme under which those who regard tax cuts as abominable, vicious and stupid could be relieved of the obligation to participate in those tax cuts?

Mr. Barber: That is quite a thought. As for the additional expenditure which I have proposed for our health and welfare

and educational purposes—and I think my hon. Friend is referring to health and welfare in particular—it will be £110 million over four years. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services will be making a statement on how this will be used.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: The right hon. Gentleman said he had not held office for 100 days. We must thank heaven for that. Does he appreciate that one has to go back to 1931 to find a meaner statement than the one we have had this afternoon? Does he appreciate that the building of the better tomorrow at the expense of the children, the sick and the unemployed, is unworthy of any nation which professes to be Christian. Will he tell me two things? What will the change in regard to agricultural subsidies and import levies mean in terms of cost of living? How much does the Chancellor expect to save by denying to the unemployed and sick the first few days of the benefits to which they are entitled?

Mr. Barber: On the latter point, this proposal was more or less that which was put forward by his right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins), but it was withdrawn. [Interruption.] I believe that he was absolutely right, but he obviously did not have the support of his colleagues. I believe that it is reasonable in present circumstances that this saving should be made. I realise what the hon. Gentleman has in mind when he talks about the effect on the sick, and so on, but by doing what I have announced today there will in total, public and private, now be more resources devoted to health and welfare than before. This is one of the things we can do. It is all very well for the hon. Member to talk about agricultural subsidies, and so on.

Mr. Fred Peart: Oh.

Mr. Barber: I know that the right hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) does not like this, but it is interesting that in only May of this year his right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) said that he wanted an additional £350 million to maintain the existing standard of the National Health Service. When he was asked where the money would come from, he said that there were only two


major areas, one from agricultural subsidies and the other from industrial grants. I believe that his right hon. Friend was right in putting this forward. I come back to the point I made before. Over the past five years, under the Labour Government, things have gone from bad to worse. Taxation has been enormously increased, prices have risen faster than at any time since 1951, and at the time we took over there was the worst summer unemployment figure since 1940. Furthermore, in the first half of 1970 we had the worst rate for strikes since 1926. We cannot go on like this. We must give somebody an incentive in order to produce what is necessary for the nation.

Mr. Heffer: Is the Chancellor aware that the abolition of the three waiting days is about the most vicious piece of class legislation that has been proposed this afternoon. This is included in a whole bunch of class legislation, which will particularly affect workers in the building industry who will now struggle back to work earlier than they should do. It might decrease the absentee rate, but it will increase the death rate among building workers. Is he also aware that his entire programme can be summed up in the main by saying that we are going back 40 years and that we have proposals of the most vicious class nature? I want to put that on record, because obviously we shall fight them every inch of the way.

Mr. Barber: In regard to the abolition of the three waiting days, I do not believe that in present circumstances this is a sensible use of money.

Mr. Heffer: You have never been a working man.

Mr. Barber: Now, because of high wages and high benefits, there is much better provision today through sick pay and redundancy pay.

Mr. Heffer: You have never experienced it.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) put a question. He must listen to the answer.

Mr. Heffer: Further to that point of order. I apologise if I get slightly emo-

tional about this, but those of us who have experienced this type of thing and who know the effect that this will have on workers become emotional in this sort of atmosphere.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I never question anybody's motives or emotions, but emotions are not matters of order.

Mr. Barber: In answer to the hon. Gentleman, I can only say that if he is not prepared to see this happen, he will not have the additional resources for hospitals and schools of the kind and extent which I have announced. These are programmes which go considerably beyond the plans of the previous Administration. When the hon. Gentleman talks about going back over the years, has he forgotten that his own Government during their period of office of six years, with the hon. Gentleman's support, maintained in this country a growth of output only half what it had been in the previous six years? Has he also forgotten in regard to the people for whom he says he is so concerned—and I believe that he is sincere—that during that period the standard of living rose at only about a third of the rate at which it had risen during the previous 13 years? These are the facts that count.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: Is the right hon. Gentleman saying to the House that the resources for increased hospital building should be found from the pockets of the sick?

Mr. Barber: All I can say is that that is not the view which was taken by his own right hon. Friend when he was Prime Minister when the Labour Government brought back prescription charges. The then Prime Minister took an entirely contrary view, and I thought he was right to do so.

Mr. Tom Boardman: Is it not clear that the increased charges proposed by my right hon. Friend for prescriptions, housing, milk, and the like, will not fall upon any family or persons whose means are inadequate to meet them, thus accepting the standard set by the Opposition when they were in Government?

Mr. Barber: This is the purpose of the proposals for remissions and exemptions


and family income supplement which I have announced this afternoon.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: The Chancellor said that the increase in resources would have to be raised through charges. Is he not aware that the increase of £28 million in four years for school building is very much less than the increase in school building under the Labour Government?

Mr. Barber: I think the right hon. Lady has misunderstood the point. These are additional starts which are over and above the proposals put forward by the previous Government. This is additional school building.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must move on. I understand that we are to debate this matter next week.

NEW MEMBER SWORN

Kenneth Wilfred Baker, esquire, for St. Marylebone.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Francis Pym.]

METRICATION

Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I call the Minister to open the debate, I would remind the House that it is a curtailed debate. We have many pro- and anti-metricators, if I may coin the phrase. I hope that speeches will be reasonably brief and that we shall measure them not by the column inch but by the column centimetre.

5.31 p.m.

The Minister for Industry (Sir John Eden): This debate on metrication is long overdue. It takes place following the undertaking given in this House in July by my right hon. Friend who was then Minister of Technology. I think that much public disquiet would have been avoided if the previous Administration had put the position more clearly before Parliament and the people.
In order to get this debate in some perspective, it is necessary first to give a brief survey of recent history on the subject. As you have said, Mr. Speaker, there is not much time left for this debate, and I know that many hon. Members wish to take part. Obviously it will not be possible for me to cover all the points, but I assure hon. Members at the outset that we shall take careful note of everything said in the course of the debate.
In this opening speech, I hope to touch upon the following matters: the facts of international trade; the target date of 1975; the present position in British industry; the present position in education; the costs of the operation; and the position of the retail trade and the domestic consumer.
I come first to the background. More than 100 years ago, in 1864, an Act of Parliament legalised the use of metric measures for science and the export trade. The most crucial decision was taken by Parliament in 1897 when it passed the Weights and Measures (Metric System) Bill. This Act permitted metric weights and measures to be used for most purposes of trade in the United Kingdom as an alternative to the Imperial weights and measures. Since that time, the use of the metric system in the United Kingdom has advanced almost without interruption until at the present time we are a nation using two systems of units.
About 20 years ago, the Hodgson Committee on Weights and Measures took extensive evidence, noted the steady advance of the metric system in the world although half the world's trade was still in the Imperial system, and recorded the unanimous view that the change from Imperial to metric in this country was sooner or later inevitable and should proceed to finality in due course under Government guidance.
The Committee added important provisos: that the change be done in concert with North American and Commonwealth countries which base their units on the yard and the pound, that it should be accompanied or preceded by the decimalisation of our coinage, and that there should be a lengthy process of preparing the general public for the change.
Parliament's last action on the matter was the Weights and Measures Act, 1963 in which the Imperial yard and pound are defined in terms of the international metre and kilogramme. In this sense, we may already claim to be a metric country, but we still generally translate the metric values into our Imperial units.
Turning to the position of international trade, we see that the world advance of the metric system has accelerated since the second world war. Russia had adopted the metric system after the first world war. India and Japan began the conversion which is now virtually complete after the second world war. More recently, South Africa, and virtually the whole Commonwealth, including Australia, Canada and New Zealand, have decided to change. It is difficult to grasp the great impact on our trade of this steady advance of the metric system in all these many countries comprising 90 per cent. of the world population.
The fact is that we have to compete in a metric world. Of the important countries, the U.S.A. has not yet joined the band but is seriously considering doing so; for example, the U.S. Space Agency has recently decided to go wholly metric. It seems likely that a forthcoming report to Congress will show that U.S. industry, commerce and consumer interests have reached the conclusion that the early adoption of the metric system is inevitable.
There are other facts which the House will wish to note. Our markets using

metric units have expanded more rapidly than our markets still using Imperial units, and it is most probable that this trend will continue.
Our exporting industries are under pressure. May I take as an example an order on a British shipyard for a metric ship? Such orders carry the metric system into our community. Not only must the ship's hull be drawn in metres and millimetres but many of the thousands of components that are assembled to make that ship must be metric and many must conform in their dimensions to international metric standards.
The millimeter has become the dominant unit of measurement in the workshops of the world and is infiltrating British workshops month by month.
Improved communications and the greater dependence, notably of the United Kingdom, but also of all industrial countries upon their overseas trade has led to a growth of world technical and engineering standards. These mostly concern the nuts and bolts and the thousands of other components that are essential parts of all our equipment and machines. There are now approaching 2,000 of these standards forming a world technological code. Today, there are almost twice the number of world standards that existed only five years ago. In electrical engineering alone the world agreements of the International Electrotechnical Commission cover 17,000 pages; virtually all these agreements use metric units. The International Standards Organisation is equally active.
Standards agreements are not generally negotiated by Governments but by representatives of industry operating in the voluntary standards organisations. Isolation in these daily negotiations would be the consequence of any insistence on Imperial weights and measures. Loss of overseas trade would be the consequence of our failure to conform to these world standards, which are overwhelmingly metric. More than 90 per cent. of new British Standards today, quite normally written to conform to this extensive world code, in consequence use the metric system.
It is for these reasons that British industry has been moving steadily towards the adoption of the metric system. The previous Government indicated in 1965 that the process would be largely completed in


ten years. That still seems to be the generally accepted view, and the Government acknowledge that it is a realistic forecast of the date by which the greater part of British industry will have adopted metric weights and measures.
Much progress has already been made, therefore. Important sectors of industry, including the motor vehicle industry, the aircraft industry, shipbuilding and marine engineering, and the electrical chemical and pharmaceutical industries is in the process of changing or has changed. Many other industries are actively preparing to change. Orders for £2,000 million worth of buildings in metric measures are on the drawing board, and in some cases metric construction work has already begun.
In support of these efforts, more than half the B.S.I. standards have now been expressed in metric terms: work continues and all new standards are of course metric from conception. It is not conceivable that we could reject this movement and try—I am not sure how—to make industry abandon all these modern specifications. Work going back to 1963 would have to be scrapped and there would be a delay of up to 10 years while new Imperial specifications were drafted, agreed and published.

Mr. Ronald Bell: My hon. Friend has talked about forcing industry to abandon the specifications. Surely it is the case that a great deal of this work on the drawing boards is there as a result of Government initiative. All that the Government have to do is stop forcing them, and the trend will stop naturally.

Sir J. Eden: I do not agree with the emphasis in my hon. and learned Friend's question. Where the initiative arises is the recognition of the facts of international trade which are leading British industry to make these changes. The Government come into the situation only when it is quite clear that the time has come when amendments to statutes and so forth are inevitable.

Mr. John Biffen: Is my right hon. Friend saying that up to now the public sector and the Government have not used their purchasing power to promote metrication?

Sir J. Eden: I will come to purchasing power later in my speech. The point with which I am dealing at this stage is the recognition that British industry is bound to accord to the realities of international trade because increasingly the markets in which it is trying to sell its goods are using the metric unit.

Mr. John Rankin: Does the Minister agree that a great deal of the success of metrication has been aided by the work done in the schools which have been carrying on under Government patronage? Would the Government now stop the work going on in the schools?

Sir J. Eden: The hon. Gentleman will recollect that in my opening paragraph I said that I would be touching on education later. I will certainly mention these points. If I miss any, hon. Members can bring them up during the debate and, as I undertook, we will give serious consideration to everything that is said.
I wanted to make clear that there is no question of being able to go back on the position—to put into reverse what has already been done by industry. This would mean that so much of what had already taken place since 1963 would have to be scrapped and there would be a delay of probably up to 10 years while new Imperial specifications were drafted, agreed and published.
We would certainly lose ground in foreign markets—indeed, many of our goods would cease to be entertained for export abroad—and our equipment-using industries would be forced to import foreign machines while waiting for new Imperial designs to come forward, if indeed they would then accept them. I must make clear that there can be no going back on the preparations of industry, on the factory floor, and with suppliers.
I turn to the position of education.

Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn: The Minister said that there could be no question of going back. Will he give his view on whether he wishes to go back, were it possible so to do, or is he reinforcing the view of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State who for years with the C.B.I. urged the Government continuously to press ahead? Will the hon. Gentleman be more positive?

Sir J. Eden: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will first hear the whole of my speech.
The metric system has in reality become the language of measurement of most of the world and of science, engineering and a rapidly growing part of all our industry. This clearly has implications for education which have already been widely accepted in our schools. The metric system needs to be taught from an early age. The teaching of the more complicated Imperial weights and measures takes the time both of the children and of the teachers and it is costly. I am sure that we should try to eliminate as much unnecessary or redundant material from the school curricula as possible. But the pressures in education are again coming from industry, because industry in particular needs more and more mathematicians familiar with the metric system.
A lot of progress has already been made—notably in the preparation of new textbooks. The market for these textbooks is throughout the English-speaking world. In India, for example, before they were able to write their own metric textbooks they had first to translate French and German books into English. Soviet books were being published in English. At the same time, British textbooks and technical works had to be excluded because they did not use metric weights and measures or a decimalised currency.
With the wide international use of the English language it would be the worst of ironies if we clung too long to the Imperial system of measurement, which today is a barrier to trade and communication, and if we thereby reduced our influence in the world and the value to us of our own language.
Hon. Members will wish to hear something about costs. It is not possible to give precise figures. Manufacturing concerns are adopting metric measures because, in their view, the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs. They have to take into account the expanding markets for metric products and the fact that the markets for Imperial products are contracting.
Among the main costs of metrication are the costs of preparing new metric designs for products and of adapting or replacing existing machine tools and other

equipment to make them. These costs can be heavy, but are not properly chargeable to metrication alone if the products are in any case due for redesign. Therefore, timing is of the greatest importance to avoid the costs of premature obsolescence, and it is noteworthy that different industries have voluntarily chosen different time tables. A very high suggested cost of metrication publicised for the brewing industry was apparently based on the assumption of an enforced change in a very short period. Almost the whole cost would disappear if the change were spread over a period of years to take account of the normal replacement of breakages and obsolescence. But no estimate was then possible for this particular industry as it would depend on decisions on timing that have not yet been taken.
The costs and benefits to individual companies are generally confidential and will never be aggregated to produce global estimates of the cost and profitability of metrication. Global estimates that have appeared in the Press lack all statistical foundation.
The balancing of costs and benefits in industry must be left to industry. Costs and benefits will also arise on the public account. Here the Government must maintain a free hand to consider the merits of any proposed expenditure item by item. For example, I mentioned a moment ago new textbooks in schools. These will certainly cost money; but school books have a normal life of three to five years, so replacement over this period would cost very little. However, new textbooks will be better textbooks, and it could be in the interests of education to accelerate the supply at some cost or at the cost of renewing other kinds of books; but this must be a decision taken on its merits by the authorities concerned.
Another cost which has attracted attention concerns road signs. The cost of metricating road signs, which the Government are examining, may also eventually have to be considered by local authorities.
It is the Government's firm intention to absorb any immediate costs of metrication in Government departments within the ordinary total provision for management and staff. The cost of the Metrication Board itself is separately identified,


but to a large extent it is combining separate functions of a large number of Government departments which cannot individually co-ordinate the activities of so many industries, trades, and reach the many sections of the public. Its estimate is being carefully reviewed.
I should like to underline a point to which reference has already been made by some of my hon. Friends; namely, that Government involvement takes place in another way. The Government, like other public bodies, are a big purchaser and they are affected by and can themselves affect industry's programmes. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, when he was Minister of Technology, assured the House, in his statement on 20th July, that the Government would seek to use metric specifications for public purchases as soon as consultation with suppliers shows this to be practicable. This is for the clear reason that the Government certainly do not want to spend money on equipment which will become obsolete once the metric change is complete.
I turn to the question which has probably been worrying hon. Members almost more than anything else: the consequences of metrication in everyday life. So far I have dealt solely with the influences which have been working on industry and have led to the development and adoption of the metric system.
Turning to the consequences of metrication in everyday life, I want to say a word particularly about the retail trade and the position of the consumer. From a careful study of metrication during the last few years it is apparent that the consultations on metric weights and measures as they affect the retail trade have been almost rudimentary compared with the elaborate and repeated consultations within industry that have been in progress for six years.
The principal Act of 1897 which said, in effect, that one may use either metric or imperial measures as one wishes can be extended a long way into everyday life but not all the way. It may be believed privately that because both the Olympic Games and the recent Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh used metric weights and measures it would give British athletes a better chance if we adopted the Olympic metric standards for all our

athletics, but I think that we should leave decisions of this kind where they properly belong, in this case to the Amateur Athletics Association.
We may also believe privately that Nijinsky lost his only race in France because he was not used to a metric course. It is for the Jockey Club to decide whether it wishes to use the furlong as a means of measurement.
Even with the coverage of the Weights and Measures Act, 1963, the same principle may be applied in some cases. For example, the Weights and Measures Act (Amendment of Schedules 5 and 7) Order, 1970, which has been laid before the House would not make it unlawful to sell sand and ballast in imperial units, but would make it lawful to sell either in metric or in imperial measures. This new freedom is proposed as the outcome of consultations following a request from this trade. The Order will not increase the area of compulsion, but will reduce it.
It must be considered very carefully just how far this precedent can be followed for other goods. I am sure the House will agree that this principle is wholly inapplicable to the sale of drugs. There are real dangers to the public in allowing two systems of units to be used in the chemist's shop or on doctor's prescriptions. It is for this reason, and with common consent that not only the pharmaceutical industry but chemists' shops have almost completed the conversion to exclusively metric usage and have accepted a fixed terminal date by which metrication is to be completed.
I know that there is a lot of concern about what might happen to the British pint. I want to make it clear that there is no immediate need to change milk bottles and beer glasses. These are not key items of international trade. They are matters which can be considered at leisure after proper consultation and discussion. There are other articles of domestic trade, such as bread and meat, which do not have to be put up in metric sizes for reasons of international trade. There is no sense of urgency about these, either.
Similarly, there is no need to worry too much about the units used when loose fruit, vegetables and sweets are weighed on scales in front of the individual customer. As long as it is convenient to


shopkeepers and purchasers to use pounds and ounces for these purposes there is no strong economic argument for promoting change. There are other arguments for eliminating the use of a second system of weights and measures as soon as possible, for the general convenience and to get the full benefits of metrication in school teaching, but if ounces and pounds are still wanted for a few simple uses I am sure that they can be accommodated. If the housewife and the clubman are content to carry on using the imperial pint while it suits them, there should be no difficulty in their doing so.
I hope, therefore, that hon. Members will feel able to reassure their constituents on these matters, which are not really relevant to the basic question of maintaining industry's momentum towards its target date of 1975.

Captain Walter Elliot: I do not think that my hon. Friend mentioned the measurement of land. What does he think about hectares and acres?

Sir J. Eden: Broadly speaking, the agricultural industry is in favour of moving towards the adoption of the metric system, but if my hon. and gallant Friend wishes to have this matter referred to at greater length I shall ask my right hon. Friend to take up the point.
At the centre of industry's interest in retail trade is the subject of packaging which is very much wider than the restrictive range of products that have to be sold in prescribed quantities. The total cost to the country of packaging is over £700 million a year. Industry has two aims—gradually to reduce the very great and uneconomic variety of package sizes now in use, and as far as possible to adopt for the home market package sizes that are acceptable abroad.
There is a growing volume of national and international recommendations on packages, weights, volumes and dimensions, very largely in metric measure. The introduction of standard metric package sizes for many purposes will certainly happen, however gradually. For most purposes it can be done without amendment of existing state statutes.
In this very brief summary I have tried to give the House the facts as I see them. On the industrial front, as developments proceed, the Government accept that the need for legislation will

doubtless emerge, but on the other matters affecting the general consumer we shall take fully into account the views expressed in this House and in the debate which is to take place shortly in another place.

Miss Joan Quennell: Will my hon. Friend suggest to his right hon. Friend who is to wind up the debate that the measurement of land affects the consumer to a large extent, particularly in relation to estate agencies, the conveyancing of houses, room sizes and gardens?

Sir J. Eden: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will have heard my hon. Friend's comment.

5.57 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn: I listened to the hon. Gentleman the Minister for Industry with considerable interest. I hope that he will not think it discourteous of me if I say that I had expected the Secretary of State to open the debate, not just because this was the first opportunity for him to speak in the House, which we should all have welcomed, but because he recognises that the policy adopted by the previous Government which, in a mild way, as we have heard during the debate, is being continued by this Government, stems principally from industry. The right hon. Gentleman who has written and spoken about metrication, might, I think, have opened the debate himself.
I have before me a powerful article which the right hon. Gentleman wrote in the Purchasing Journal in February, 1969, when he was responsible for the C.B.I. in which he said that the "head of steam" for metrication came from British industry, and I suspect that had he made the speech that we have just heard it would have been rather different. If I may quote him, in the article to which I have just referred he said that it would be
courting disaster for one to change
—he was referring to industry as compared with the retail trade—
its units of measurement without the other".
There has been a totally different emphasis between that which the right hon. Gentleman gave when he was Director General of the C.B.I., which the previous Government accepted, and the


emphasis given today by his hon. Friend the Minister for Industry.
It is true that this subject has caused a lot of anxiety, and I think that the number of hon. Members present today, many of whom I hope wish to speak, will be giving voice to the anxieties that have been felt.

Hon. Members: Where are the right hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends?

Mr. Benn: The measure of unanimity on our side of the House is expressed by the monolithic absence of my right hon. and hon. Friends.
I hope that nobody, in arguing the case for metrication, will argue that this is being done by stealth. There can never have been an issue which has been debated so fully and so frankly over such a long period as metrication.
In 1790, the French made their first offer. Records are available from the Metrication Board indicating that the debate about metrication has gone on almost continuously since the end of the 18th century and that for 73 years, as the hon. Gentleman said, Britain has itself had a double system. Any stealth that there may have been in the introduction of metrication by industry in the last few years has been done under the cover of an Act passed while Queen Victoria was still on the Throne.
The number of public surveys and public consultations, and the amount of public debate that there has been, explains why the consensus has built up that some hon. Members wish to challenge today. I made inquiries to confirm my strong impression that nobody, from 1964 to 1970—until the General Election—sought a debate on mertication by tabling an early day Motion in the House. There were many Questions, which are referred to in the Paper on metrication in Parliament we have before us. Indeed in it we are reminded that the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) once asked the Government to impose the metric system and was resisted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling).
That is in the book, if anyone wants to look it up. But there was no requests for a debate. I would have greatly wel-

comed a debate on metrication, had there been any indication whatsoever that I could have brought to my right hon. Friend the then Leader of the House to suggest that the House wished to have a debate. I am on record—and I am quite happy to give the House any references that it may want—as continually inviting the House, the country, the broadcasting authorities and the Press, to give greater publicity to mertication, because of its importance to the public.

Mr. John H. Osborn: Many of my hon. Friends tried, in the Ballots for the Adjournment before Easter and Whitsun, to get an hour's debate on this subject rather than have an ordinary Adjournment debate. We would have liked the previous Government to give a day to this subject and not to have had to wait until there was a change of Government.

Mr. Benn: No doubt the hon. Member is quite sincere, but if he had been able to give me an indication that there was a body of opinion in the House that wished to debate metrication it would have made my job easier, in trying to get time out of the Government. But since there was no early day Motion, and since only about 30 Questions were asked during the period, we concluded that this movement towards metrication—which has a certain element of international inevitability about it—was being done with the support of the House as a whole.
In 1965, my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay)—who, the House will agree, is not notable for his pro-European feelings—responded to the F.B.I. in saying that the Government would give its support sector by sector in moving to the metric system. In 1966, Mr. Frank Cousins, my predecessor, set up a committee which engaged in wide consultations, and I made a statement on 26th July, 1968, bringing the recommendations of the Standing Joint Committee to the House. It has been argued that this was just before the Summer Recess and that it was in some way an attempt to prevent the House's debating the question, but anyone who has experience of government business will know that far from delaying things until the Recess most Ministers are anxious to get their statements out


before the House rises so that no one will be able to accuse them of reaching decisions during the summer holiday period.
During that statement—in the course of which some hon. Members shouted that I was taking too long over it—I urged the need for wide public debate. I need not go over the ground that the Minister has already covered, except to say that all that he has told us about the move towards metrication, worldwide, and in industry in this country, is absolutely correct and constitutes the background against which the House must express its view today.
Only last week the Americans had a delegation over here. A Press release was issued, which hon. Members will have seen, indicating that in the course of discussions our American visitors "confirmed the Metrication Board's understanding that American industry and commerce generally has reached the conclusion that the early adoption of the metric system in the United States is inevitable", which means that the last remaining proviso of the Hodgson Committee in 1950 has, in a sense, been met by the early thinking of the United States on this matter, they having declined to change in 1821—in the days of John Quincey Adams—on the grounds that they should not change until Britain had changed because they must not deviate from us.

Mr. Cranley Onslow: Since neither John Quincey Adams nor Queen Victoria witnessed the age of aviation, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is his understanding that America's agreement about metrication extends into aviation?

Mr. Benn: It does not, because America is not a metric country. But one of the study groups set up under the Metric Study Act, which was passed by Congress by a huge majority, covers the aerospace industry, and I have no doubt that when the metric system begins in America it will come with quite a rush. I doubt whether there will be a risk of our being left alone in any great degree. It is possible to build aircraft to two standards. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery), who is to wind up today, launched an aircraft half of which has

been built in inches and half in metres. Whether that explains part of the cost escalation of Concorde, I do not know.
The question is whether it is sensible that this country should stand outside the general trend of events. We are here discussing the progress that has been made. The hon. Gentleman, with a singular lack of fire, described what had happened, and we now have to perform the function that he laid down for us, of giving our opinions whether this is right or not.
There is some pretty fundamental opposition to metrication. I was sent a pamphlet that I have since treasured about four years ago, called "The Battle for the Inch" in which a quotation is given to the effect that it would be wrong for this country to abandon the measures described in the Bible, in Leviticus 19.35:
Ye shall do no unrighteusness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure.
I think that this was a reference to corrupt traders, but the British Israel World Federation, which published the pamphlet, took it as an argument against metrication.
There are others who argue that this is a subtle plot to bring us into Europe. This is not the case. The argument about Europe could reinforce those in favour of adopting the international standard, but it is not for that reason that the move towards metrication has occurred; it is because there is a very general movement, world wide, and it would be gravely to the disadvantage of this country if we were not to follow along.
There is a view that this move somehow represents a repudiation of our British traditions, and that that is another reason why we should not adopt metrication. But if we are serious about making the best use of our resources it would be foolish to disregard what the British Association and the Associated Chambers of Commerce found in 1966, namely, that there would be about a 5 per cent. saving in education for children aged between 7 and 11 overall, and a 15 per cent. saving in mathematics in secondary schools, if only one system could ultimately be taught.
If we are considering—as we must consider today—what view to take, apart from the question whether we think that it has happened in the right way, we must take account of some of the fundamental


advantages offered by the metric system which influenced industry, the last Government and, clearly, also this Government.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Did I hear the right hon. Gentleman aright? Did he say that the Association of Chambers of Commerce had found that there would be a 15 per cent. reduction in the overall cost of education from the adoption of the metric system? If so, will he explain how chambers of commerce are particularly qualified to assess savings in the overall cost of education, and how such an astonishing figure could have been reached?

Mr. Benn: I shall find the passage for the hon. and learned Gentleman. In 1960, the British Association and the Association of British Chambers of Commerce published a report called "Decimal Coinage and the Metric System: Should Britain Change?" I do not have a copy of the report before me; I am deriving what I am saying from a quotation, which says that there would be a 10–20 per cent. saving in mathematics teaching and a 5 per cent. total teaching time saving, for those aged between 7 and 11 years, from a move to the metric system.

Mr. Angus Maude: Would that include the increased cost of changing textbooks or not?

Mr. Benn: The argument about the increased cost of changing textbooks is partly met by what the hon. Gentleman said in opening—generally, if you are replacing, you replace with metric. So this is a cost carried on replacement and in the end you get a saving comparable to the one I gave. But at any rate, I am only putting it to the House, since the hon. Gentleman chose not to do it himself, for a reason that I do not understand, that there are genuine gains in economy and advantage for children and to the community of adopting a worldwide system.
The country which has given the world its maps based on Greenwich and the language used world-wide can hardly argue that there is some implicit treason in abandoning the imperial system of weights and measures, which we could

only preserve at great cost to our economy and ourselves.

Mr. Ronald Bell: British standard time.

Mr. Benn: Even that is linked to the Greenwich meridian, and it was introduced for an experimental period. As I know from recent correspondence on behalf of my local chamber of commerce, that is now being reviewed, quite properly, after the experimental period.

Mr. James Dempsey: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, only a few months ago, a conference of Scottish building interests assessed that the introduction of the metric system would increase building costs by 1 per cent.? Has he any information about this effect?

Mr. Benn: Some reference was made to costs by the hon. Gentlemen who now has access to estimates that I do not have, but the figure of about 1 to 2 per cent. on turnover has been used for rough and ready purposes. But it again has to be set against the fact that this will occur at the same time as reinvestment in new equipment. It does not follow that, if your machine tool wears out and you buy a new one which is a metric one, the total cost of the equipment should be laid against the metrication programme.
Dunlop have estimated a cost of £3 10s. per employee per year for seven years as the cost of metrication. But one has to ask whether Dunlop, who have recently joined Pirelli in a new international tyre company, would not have been doing this anyway as part of their international operations. Therefore, we are on very unsure ground when talking of the costs for individual companies and we have to consider what the cost of not metricating would be if this country were to choose to be a quaint little island entirely separate from the means by which the rest of the world measured its manufactures and organised its trade.
I can give one figure from the Australian report. I think that I am right in saying that the Australians, who have decided to metricate, calculated that it would cost 5 to 8 per cent. a year more for every year that a decision to metricate was postponed. Therefore, unless there is anyone here who could confidently say


that this country could avoid the metric system altogether, we are faced with very much larger costs if we do not move ahead with some speed.
As the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. John Davies) said in the article which I quoted earlier, a great case for metrication is not only international standardisation and the benefits to trade, but the fact that it gives industry an opportunity to redesign, itself, many of its own products, to reduce the number of varieties that it may have inherited from the past. Some figures which have been given here are remarkable. I cite only two. One firm which had inherited 280 different sizes of ball bearings in the imperial measure, on re-examining the problem, in the light of metrication, was able to reduce them to 30 standards. I understand that G.K.N. are planning to reduce the number of fasteners from 4,000 to about 750. These secondary benefits which come from metrication arise out of the fact that one has to redesign anyway and that therefore some benefit may flow from it.

Mr. John Page: Would the right hon. Gentleman agree that all those simplifications and standardisations could equally have been done in the Roman imperial measurement? One can standardise in any form one likes.

Mr. Benn: But one could have standardised in the old system in which 36 barleycorns laid ear to ear represented a foot or the length from the tip of King Edgar's nose to the end of his finger was a yard. One can do anything along those lines, but is it sensible to do it when the overwhelming majority of the world is the market for British equipment? One wants to sell not only one's finished goods, but one's components as well.
I am not as qualified as the Secretary of State to speak on this and I wish that he had spoken in the debate. But it is obvious that, in the world today, where one does not sell just one's finished goods but, increasingly, one's components as well, if we do not have our components on the same basis as our competitors' we will not sell our components to him, and this will be a disadvantage to us.
Three trends are going on simultaneously and it would be wrong to isolate metrication from the other two. The

first, clearly, is the move towards metrication which I have described. The second is the move to standardise—not just the SI system but getting international standards agreed, so that products can be interchangeable. The third is the move towards the acceptance of international inspection procedures, so that goods can be sold abroad in any country to which one exports because they accept the British Standard Inspection procedure. These three tendencies are all going on simultaneously and were we for any reason to isolate ourselves from these tendencies, it would be to the disadvantage of this country.
May I turn now to what I believe is a very powerful and understandable and real arguments in the minds of some people, namely, the myth—

Mr. Carol Mather: I wanted to come back to the question whether or not the right hon. Gentleman said that the Americans have decided to go metric. I had the American equivalent of the Metrication Board on the telephone yesterday, and they said that there would be no decision until the end of 1971.

Mr. Benn: I was quoting the Press release following the visit of the American delegation, but it is in August, 1971, that Mr. Stans, the American Secretary of Commerce, has to make his decision following the metrication vote in Congress. I was not announcing American metrication today, and if the hon. Gentleman thought that I was, he was wrong.
One of the most difficult problems is the feeling which has emerged from the anti-metrication lobby that somehow this is part of the terrible standardisation of life, that metrication forces us into a standard, as does all modern technology. Of course, the evidence is quite the reverse. It is as a result of modern industry and modern technology and metrication and all these other trends that we get a far greater variety of goods and products available. One of the most deeply entrenched myths among the comments about modern industry is that everybody is being squeezed into a common mould. This simply is not the case.
Nor do I think that too much should be made of the difficulty of getting used to metric measurement. As a photographer, I have never been embarrassed


about buying 33 mm. film. I listen to the 25 metre band on the radio, and I have got used, as we all have, to talk of megaton bombs and 500 cc. motor bikes.

Mr. Onslow: How tall are you?

Mr. Benn: I can only say that I have shrunk over the years, as we all do.
The truth is that people are capable of making this adjustment and it would have to be a very powerful argument which moved us away from it now.
Although I had hoped that there would not be any element of political controversy here, I was slightly hurt by the hon. Gentleman's rebuke at the beginning about the failure to have a debate before. We were not uninfluenced by Lord St. Oswald's powerful speech in the other place, in which he said:
The official opposition, for which I am now speaking, takes the view that we shall go metric. The decision is inevitable. Speaking personally, I say not only is the process inevitable, but the sooner the better."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 26th June, 1969; Vol. 303, c. 280.]
The only pressure for legislation for the enforcement of metrication came from his right hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), who is now a Minister in his own Department.
I can honestly say that the view which influenced the Labour Government was the view that came from industry, being "the big ear rather than the big mouth", to quote the right hon. Gentleman in a recent speech, listening to what industry needed and responding to it.
But, of course, it is true that the Consumer Council has come out in favour of metrication and that the C.B.I. has reaffirmed its view that "any kind of delay imposed from without would cause major dislocation". Even the Women's Committee of the British Standards Institution, the most terrifying body that I have ever come across, has come out strongly in favour of metrication. If this were a Socialist plot, I should like to know what it was about the last Labour Government that won round the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Women's Associations to be associated with the plea for metrication. The truth is that these women's organisations, representing, they claim, about 4 million mem-

bers, have come out and issued statements in support of metrication.
The representative status of those of us whose business is representation is itself always highly arguable, but I believe it reasonable to say that although there may not have been as much public debate as there might have been, in general those who have confronted this change and thought about it have found it quite sensible. For this reason, I found the Minister's speech was rather unsatisfactory.
I know what he was doing. He was faced with a revolt on his side of the House and it slightly surprised him. A warning shot was fired across his bows. It was agreed to have a debate and they said we should have a debate and shall listen to it. But everything he said was in line with continuing metrication, although he was softening it a little because of the criticism that there might be. The Minister's bedtime story approach to metrication may be right in dealing with the criticisms which he expects today, but this process cannot be delayed without imposing a very high cost on the economy.
The programme for metrication purposes by the Defence Department will have to go on, because we want to sell our equipment abroad; the programme in the construction industry will have to go on, because we want to sell and buy building components abroad. Legislation will have to be introduced to define the units to be used, even though the whole thing is to be voluntary and there are to be no compulsory powers, except in the single case of drugs for reasons of safety.
I do not know what will be the impact of the Minister's speech, but I give notice—and perhaps some of these questions may be answered in the winding-up speech—that we shall want to know whether the individual programmes which have been set in motion in the Departments dealing with merchant shipping, with weights and measures, transport, education, in the Ministry of Defence will go on. Will those Departments be going on with their programmes and will legislation be introduced? Is there to be, as the Minister half hinted, any restriction of the budget of the Metrication Board which, as it has no compulsory powers,


is the real agency by which the public may be brought to understand what is in mind and may be brought into consultation before individual trades and industries reach their own decisions?
I conclude with two points. One concerns the problem of communication, which is important and difficult. I have searched my own conscience many times to see whether we could have done better to publicise what was being discussed. We are in the difficulty that Parliament likes to discuss things which are highly controversial and is not as concerned as it should be with the fundamental changes which may be going on and which may affect everybody in the community. Secondly, the mass media are always interested in the immediate topicality of today's news and do not perform the function which they might perform—not even the B.B.C.—of trying to alert people to long-term trends and tendencies with which they ought to be concerned.
I take a parallel which I hope the House will not think too widely stretched. The whole problem of pollution is a problem which arises because as a community we do not think far enough ahead and therefore do not anticipate the consequences of what we do. If there has been a failure of communication about metrication, as I think there has been those of us who are in the mass communication business, and that applies to all Members of Parliament and the Press and television and radio, are responsible. It makes me wonder whether we could not do better.
Secondly, there is a positive point. I was not interested in the subject until it was brought to my attention as the responsible Minister. However, the more I travelled around the world and saw what it meant and what standardisation and international standards procedures meant, the more this subject lifted itself off the paper where it was just a theoretical exercise and the more the trends of the international impact of technology became real to me.
I will not conceal from the House that I see enormous political benefit in a world which does all its measuring upon the same scale, which thinks alike about projects which it handles and distances which it sees and weights and other things

which it assays. Therefore, in metricating we are not only responding to the manifest needs of industry and saving educational time which is of value to the child and to the community, but also, not for the first time, following an opportunity that technology has opened up which allows the world to feel its unity again.
I hope that when he has overcome his mini-revolt the Minister will be able to take up this development and present it to the public in a rather more exciting way than he has felt able to do today.

6.28 p.m.

Mr. Robert Redmond: I should begin by craving the indulgence of the House for a maiden speech. I feel that I ought to do so with far more than the usual sincerity and perhaps some temerity. There is a rather unfortunate precedent about maiden speeches in my family, if I may use the word in its widest sense.
The late John Redmond came here in February 1881, as the result of a by-election. On his very first day in the House, he attempted to make his maiden speech, but he never completed it: he was escorted from the Chamber by the Serjeant at Arms. I sincerely hope that I shall not incur your anger or displeasure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as did my late and rather mere illustrious ancestor that of Mr. Speaker Brown of those days.
John Redmond came here to represent part of what is now the Republic of Ireland. I have come here to represent the constituents of Bolton, West. I am not speaking on my first day in the House, but I am speaking on the first day back after a recess and I shall proceed with caution.
When my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House announced in July that there was to be this debate, it seemed to me right during the recess for me to find out the views of the people of Bolton and perhaps to do some homework and report to the House what they felt about metrication for industry in Bolton and in their private lives. It is right that people like those of Bolton should have a say in this debate, for Bolton is at the heart of what I regard as the most important industrial conurbation in the world.
It was in places like Bolton that the Industrial Revolution began and the


people of Bolton have an inherited industrial skill and expertise which is second to none in the world. It may have been based on the textile industry, but it is now very diversified and in conveying the views of Bolton's industry and its people I believe that I am making a serious and important contribution to the debate.
I approached the subject with the view that there might be two sides to it. I believed that there would be a possible industrial attitude which might or might not be carried through to the general public and the consumer. This is more or less true, but I was surprised to find that industry itself is far from united, in spite of what the C.B.I. might say. There is disagreement within various sections of individual industries.
The building and the pharmaceutical industries have accepted metrication without much trouble and the electrical engineering industry is proceeding on the metric course. But in the mechanical engineering industry—and this surprised me—there is by no means a united view. The managing director of one company, a leader in his field in the north-west of England, told me that there was a new international metric standard for one of his products in the process of confirmation. In spite of what has been said from both Front Benches today, he tells me that his competitors in the United States will absolutely refuse to accept that standard. He advises me, and I would not reject the advice of this man, who is important in the mechanical engineering industry, that his part of the industry has to proceed with caution.
For many years he has been able to meet the demands of metric countries by arranging metric alternatives for certain critical dimensions of his products. This, he says, is easy to do, but the task of changing all dimensions to prime metric would be not only impossible, but, he maintains, extremely ill-advised. Changing an inch dimension is quite easy, but it is not complete metrication.
This director goes on to say—and this is extremely important—that United States engineers are keeping a very close watch on what is going on in this country in the hope that we will go metric, because they hope then to take the inch markets of the world from us. As I have

said, this director is a leader in his field in the engineering industry.
My own experience is with smaller engineering companies which I regard as the most important people in this country. I met the managing director of one such company recently. He had been on a sales tour of the Middle East. He had not been before and he had been hoping to open up some new markets and had firmly believed that he could do so. Before going he had converted all inch measurements into centimetres and millimetres. When he got there, he found that his prospective customers were busy translating them back into inches so that they could understand what he was talking about.
We have been told this afternoon that standardisation is the thing and that whereas we have had to deal with two sorts of measurements, we shall have to deal with only one. The movement could be in the opposite direction. A Bolton manufacturer of nuts and bolts has found that more than one metric system is in use and he is now working to three standards where formerly there were only two. For his European customers he uses the German DIN system; he uses metric for the majority of his overseas customers and now will have the SI system for some of his home customers. He has had to move away from standardisation.
Many people have complained to me of the cost of conversion to the metric system. I know that some in industry are welcoming it. Some seem to be resigned to it because for some reason they think that metrication will be in the interests of the export trade generally. To everyone I have met over the last three months I have put one simple and straightforward question. I have asked whether they or anyone else has ever lost an export order because Britain did not have the metric system. I have never had the question answered in the affirmative, in spite of what my hon. Friend has said.
It is my conclusion that there is no need for the Government to do anything in this matter. If industry needs to go metric, industry will go metric. Can anyone tell me why land has to be measured in hectares instead of acres and whether the farmers want that? The estate agents certainly do not. I have


spoken to a number of estate agents in Bolton and other parts of Lancashire and they are horrified by the prospect. So are many of the solicitors who work with them.
The Minister mentioned road signs. I do not see why we have to change them. We have heard about the possible cost, but I do not see why we should incur any cost. We are told that it will help the tourist trade, but the best part of our tourists come from the United States where they measure in miles.
My experience in Scandinavia, where everything is measured in the Swedish mile, is that, in the view of the Swedes, the kilometre is so unsatisfactory as a means of measure that Swedish miles are preferable. My researches, if I can call them such, show that there is serious alarm among the general public in Britain when they read of what might be happening over metrication, and I was glad to hear the Minister say that the brakes will be applied slowly.
The Bolton Women's Institute of Arts and Crafts tell me that all examinations called by the Union of Lancashire Institutes will be conducted entirely in metric by 1972. Who said 1972? I believe that the new SI metric system will be used exclusively for the G.C.E. by 1972. Some of this baffles me. A paper which, like many hon. Members, I received last week on this subject said that the introduction of metrication would remove drudgery from education. My constituents say, "We don't want easier education. We want better education".
When I have travelled abroad, and particularly on the Continent, I have noticed that people have on their desks calculating machines while we in Britain do the same sums in our heads. I suggest that this is because we have been taught the imperial system in our schools alongside the metric system; and I find no difficulty, except with some of the more complicated items, in working in metric equivalents.
I come to what is probably the most serious aspect of the debate, on which, unhappily, little emphasis has been placed. I begin by recalling what happened to a lady from Bolton who went on holiday to central Wales and who, alas, picked a rather bad patch of summer weather for her vacation. To have something to

occupy her during a rainy spell, she went to a shop to buy a knitting pattern and wool.
She bought the pattern and discovered that she needed either 3 ounces or 4 grammes of wool. She asked for white wool, although she could have used blue, and was told that she could have white in 3 ounce lots, but that if she wanted blue she would have to buy 4 grammes of it—and 3 ounces would cost 7s. and 4 grammes 7s. 4d. She wanted to know why she had to pay more for more wool than she needed, just because it was in grammes, and she was told by the shopkeeper, "It is all tied up with our application to join the Common Market".
Hon. Members may laugh about that, but I believe that if the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster comes back with the most wonderful conditions for our joining and has the greatest success in the negotiations, the British people must still be carried with him. In other words, they must not have metrication forced on them against their will. Indeed, too fast a move in the direction of metrication might even prevent us from getting into the E.E.C.
We have been told what the Women's Advisory Committee of the B.S.I. thinks. I can tell hon. Members what the majority of women in Bolton think about metrication. They do not want it and I am sure that I am joined in this belief by many of my hon. Friends, who have a great deal of respect for women electors. In any event, I believe that it will take a long time to persuade the housewife to think not in pounds and ounces. As the Bolton Townswomen's Guild says, women will not easily admit to having a 120 centimetre hip measurement or having given birth to a 3,125 gramme baby. Who can visualise either a hip measurement or a baby of those dimensions?
The answer is that we must move slowly in the direction of metrication. Although my right hon. Friend is no longer in his place, I hope that when he replies to the debate he will admit to being prepared to listen if not to the plea of the women and the constituents of Bolton, then at least to one of his own constituents, whom I happen to be. I hope I can go back to Lancashire at the weekend and assure my constituents that there are still six balls to the over.

6.40 p.m.

Mr. John Page: I was entranced by the excellent maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Redmond). He brought a breath of common sense and fresh air into what had been an extremely stultified debate.
I wish every possible success to my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry. He is extremely well qualified to hold his important office and I noted with relish the lack of enthusiasm with which he spoke on this subject. Indeed, it is that lack of enthusiasm rather than the words he used which gave me the greatest encouragement.
I was proposing to welcome his right hon. Friend, because it might be said that both are poachers turned gamekeepers. However, as an honourable, simple and humble businessman with a strong understanding of the guile of Ministers, I would suggest that they probably made the changes from gamekeepers to poachers.
We are debating a very big change indeed, a change for our industrial, educational and scientific life. It is a change which is virtually unknown in this country and totally untried everywhere else, for as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West said, the SI system is new and has not been used in any European country or by any of the psuedo-metric countries which appear in the Report.
I got the feeling from the Minister that he feels that metrication as a whole has the skids under it and that we must go slithering on. He said, "There is no going back." But no going back from what? Is it no going back from a Government determination to force metrication on the country?
As far as I can see, there are two main reasons for its introduction. The first apparently is because it is said that the world is going metric. Secondly, it is said that industry wants to go metric. I leave other hon. Members to deal with the suggestion that the world is going metric. Wherever one goes one finds very few countries which are totally metric. A friend of mine recently bought half a kilo of 2-in. nails in Holland.
How much evidence can the Government present to show that the majority of industry wants to go metric? There

have been some slipshod discussions by the SI and a questionnaire was sent to members of the C.B.I. It was answered not by all of them, but, I suspect, by some of the large companies which feel that in metrication they can see great advantage for their companies. It is instructive to note that the milk industry is determined not to go metric because, it says, metrication will cost them about £100 million to change to new bottles—and when the new bottles have been obtained, the industry will sell less milk. The brewing industry takes the same attitude with draft beer.
Is it not a fact that companies which are showing themselves fully in favour of the change see great advantage to themselves—not, I suspect, necessarily or even at all as an export advantage, a point which was ably put by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West, but as an advantage which will give them a bonanza.
Consider, for example, the manufacturers of measuring equipment. There is bound to be a vast increase on the home market for gauges, metres, school books and textile machinery if textiles must be sold in new metric measures. The same can be said of most machine tools. If steel bar must be made to metric measurements, the pressed tool manufacturers will obviously support the change. Will steel bar made to the new system have to be included in all Government contracts?

Mr. J. H. Osborn: It may be of some advantage to pressed tool manufacturers, but the manufacturers of bar will have to re-equip with tools for this change. There are both points of view.

Mr. Page: I was just coming to that point.
The larger manufacturers—those members of the C.B.I. which are able to send representatives to all C.B.I. meetings, and so on—see advantage in this change because they can afford to retool while the smaller firms cannot. Having retooled, they will be able to jack up their prices, being able to say, "Having retooled, we must amortise the cost of our equipment. These are new designs to the metric system and we must therefore charge more for them."
The same can be said of paper. I suggest that it is a piece of gross extravagance for we in this building to have


changed to an enormously larger size type of writing paper. I suppose that it was first suggested by the Metrication Board because it is "with it" nowadays to use this type of writing paper.
A large hotel owning company has informed me that to build and furnish a bedroom by the metric system will take the cost from about £500 per room to between £600 and £700, which will make a difference of between 10s. and £1 on the charge per night per room. The bed manufacturers are enthusiastic for metrication. Beds will be 4 inches longer, so that every time they sell a bed they will be able to charge more for more bed. The same applies to sheet, pillow case and pillow manufacturers. Metric lavatory paper is more extravagant because the different distance between perforations means larger quantities of paper being used each time.
All of these are valid industrial points and as a businessman in any of these industries I will throw my hat in the air and say, "Hurrah for metrication". The right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) said, when in the previous Government, that industry wanted it and that industry must have it. I never heard him say that industry wanted to get rid of S.E.T., so he would set up a board to abolish it. The Government set up the Metrication Board, an expensive, important and determined organisation, to sell metrication to the public on behalf of industry.
We are at an important crossroads and I beg the new Government in whose members, efficiency and judgment I have the greatest belief, to take the right turning. There is a clear duty upon the Government to set up a new committee or commission to tell the country about the advantages, disadvantages and the costs of metrication. This information is said not to be available, but the right hon. Gentleman said that the United States has such committees trying to assess these points. Metrication has been forced blind upon the country because no information was given by the previous Government. There were a couple of fairly feeble statements in the House, but no proper indication of any costs.
Any industry or body presenting its view of costs which might arise through metrication brought forth denials from the Metrication Board or other interested

parties. This committee will have to take between one and two years to make a sensible report. During this time the Government should take certain action. If the Metrication Board is not disbanded it should be put into cold storage and told that it must not continue its propaganda activities until the report has been published and debated in Parliament and until the Government have a clear mandate to go ahead with metrication.
Secondly, the Ministry for the Environment, in its rôle as the largest purchaser and subsidiser of building works—half the buildings in this country carry some kind of subsidy, or did until earlier this afternoon—should stop forthwith demanding that all tenders shall be answered in metric standards. Why should the Government force upon themselves an increase in prices of between 5 and 10 per cent. for a totally nebulous reason? The Ministry of Defence should no longer demand that tenders be provided in metric measurements although I accept the point of the right hon. Gentleman that if there is an international issue, such as the use of certain types of ammunition, then this would have to be taken into consideration. However, it should not be a blanket operation.
The Ministry of Education should, through the constitutional channels, call a halt to the changes to be made in school examinations and curricula. I have a very interesting letter from a scientific information officer who has travelled all over the world. He says:
True, under a metric system many basic mathematical skills will no longer be taught, but this is an impoverishment of education not its simplification.
It is extremely dangerous for our children not to be taught about pounds and feet, inches and yards. If they are to be examined in metrication standards they will not be taught the other.
I hope that my right hon. Friend, when he replies to the debate, will be clear about the activities of the Ministry for Transport Industries whereby by 1973—certainly under the previous Government—signposts, speed limits and height limits were to be changed at a total cost to the unsuspecting tax and ratepayer of about £33 million. For what reason? We cannot possibly export miles of road in Knutsford, Harrow, or Bournemouth. If I am to be caught by the police for exceeding the speed limit I would rather be


caught for exceeding it in miles per hour than in kilometres per hour.

Mr. Onslow: Would my hon. Friend not agree that if visitors to these shores misunderstand the speed limits which apply here in mile terms rather than kilometre terms there is a bonus from the point of view of road safety, in that they are likely to drive rather slower than they are otherwise entitled?

Mr. Page: That is true. I also feel that visitors who come to this country like to find something a bit different. They do not want the ordinary, the uniform, a kind of sliced, wrapped "Wonderloaf" country internationally. That is what we seem to be aiming at.
The country deserves to be told more about the costs and effects of metrication and if I can be persuaded, after being properly advised by the Government, as I consider it their duty so to do, that there are advantages for the country in going metric I will be the first to sincerely support them in doing so. I find it hard to be persuaded by any of the information we have so far heard.
During the last election one of the reasons why the Conservative Party was returned was because most of our candidates said that we were determined to consult the people, to listen to the wishes of the people, to keep in closer touch rather than to become separated from them as the previous Government had become. I do not believe that we have a mandate to turn the country into a metric country and I must solemnly ask my hon. and right hon. Friends, in whom I have the greatest faith, to institute a proper survey, to set up a proper committee and give the country the facts, then let the country choose.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Roger White: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Redmond), I rise for the first time in this House, comforted by the knowledge that I have your protection, Mr. Speaker, and the understanding of hon. Members.
I have the honour to represent the Gravesend constituency and I would like to pay tribute to my two predecessors. Mr. Albert Murray served the constituency from 1964 until June of this year

and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Royal Navy at the Ministry of Defence served from 1955 until 1964. Both achieved junior Ministerial rank towards the end of their respective Parliaments and both were relieved of their responsibilities by the electors. It follows, therefore, that I shall look to the Treasury Bench towards the end of this Parliament with some apprehension. Meanwhile, if possible it is my intention to pass modestly.
During the recent General Election the Gravesend constituency was said to be the average constituency. If an average can be estimated in terms of a constituency with an oil refinery at one end and the largest automated cement works in the world at the other, together with ship-repairing, agricultural and horticultural interests, then we are indeed proud of our average. There is little doubt that the question of change, whether it be through our currency or our measurements must have its effect upon such a diverse community.
I have little doubt but that the large industries in my constituency will cope with the transition from imperial measurements to metric measurements if that is desirable. However, it is not of the large industries in my constituency that I wish to speak tonight. I believe that the public are suspicious of metrication and the reason is that it appears to them that this has been taken for granted. With respect to the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn), they feel that metrication is overtaking them by stealth rather than agreement. Some imagine that metrication will take place in February of next year because there is confusion over decimalisation and metrication. I am not an opponent of decimalisation, although I am bound to say that I was a supporter of the 10s. unit. In general, I believe that the Decimal Currency Board has achieved a great deal. The introductory period has been successful, due to the participation of the public.
Metrication is a horse of a different colour. People are confused and bewildered by this system, despite the support given to it of late by the C.B.I., the Consumer Council, the British Standards Institution and even the N.F.U.—a powerful lobby by any standards. Confusion can be overcome by education. The


cost to the consumer is my main concern. According to some reports, two years ago the estimated cost was said to be about £5,000 million and today I understand that the figure is higher.
In his speech on the Adjournment debate on 8th July last my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) pointed out the increases for both taxpayers and ratepayers as a result of changes in speed limit signs. Only a short while ago a local authority introduced a series of road signs in glorious technicolour at considerable expense. Little wonder that Mr. and Mrs. Everyman are worried about another round of increased costs which will certainly evolve if we go metric on the roads.
The changes to petrol pumps for decimalisation has taken place. A further alteration to the litre will be necessary if the magic year 1975 is to become a reality. This is an additional cost to the consumer.
In his speech on that occasion my hon. Friend said that it was conceivable that the pubs would retain imperial measures. That is not necessarily so. Already I am given to understand that a cost of £100 million could be involved as a result of a transition and this again would fall upon the consumer. It is the effect on increased costs that causes me to rise this evening. The extent of the charge will knock on every door in the land. As a constituent of mine asked me the other day, "Will you tell me the meaning of 257 grammes of lard?". Hon. Members who have to perform duties at the customary beauty contests during future recesses will have to reconcile vital statistics of almost unbelievable proportions—flattering some and terrifying others.
We are told that the world is going metric. Although I listened intently to what my hon. Friend said this evening, the United States as far as I understand is still keeping to the imperial measurements. In the world context, it might be worth asking, "Where have all the centimetres gone? In confusion, every one." Perhaps the Minister, when he replies, will tell us what happened to the centimetre.
I am confident that the people will accept change, as I have accepted change over the years, provided that they are

supplied with sufficient information and knowledge. Great and clever men in large institutions may conceive ideas and demand their implementation. But, finally, we must consult the people. Perhaps we might have a Green Paper on the subject before the end of this Session. I trust that we shall not be in a hurry. We have our own ways of doing things in this country and they have stood the test of time.
I thank the House for its indulgence.

7.6 p.m.

Captain Henry Kerby: It falls to me to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Roger White) on what I can only describe as an extremely able, well-informed and courageous speech. He took to our ways as a duck takes to water, and I am sure that I express the view of every hon. Member when I say that I hope that he addresses us again in the near future and on many subsequent occasions.
Every call for change, so-called social reform, contains the implication that there is something wrong with the present. Impose too many reforms and one creates a sort of neurotic sense of insecurity which does nothing to help national productivity or the psychological well-being of the people, whether it be taking our national temperature in centigrade or living under so-called British Standard Time which is, in truth, Central European Time. With metrication, we seem to be in the throes of what I can only call government by stealth, government almost by default, for legislation and intent are so far post-dated that the public and indeed the House are given but scant opportunity to question anything until, in years to come, it is too late, as it almost seems to be today with metrication, judging by what my right hon. Friend the Minister said.
I am appalled to see how far creeping metrication has already proceeded stealthily without detailed parliamentary debate and certainly, as far as I am aware, without any parliamentary approval whatever. I suspect that successive Ministers responsible to the House have allowed themselves to be jollied into becoming the mere agents—unconsciously the agents, naturally, but nevertheless the agents—for outside organisations and


outside interests, the hidden persuaders, in this case the autonomous bulldozing Metrication Board, the twin ugly sister of the Decimalisation Board.
Next February we are all to be plunged into the crass folly of decimal coinage—funny money. The rises in the cost of living will be stupendous, and so will the fiddles perpetrated on the British public which will accompany those rises. What is it all for? It is merely to prove that we are more trendy, more "with it", more European. Now we have this metric madness, this alien academic nonsense, introduced secretly through the back door by a bunch of cranks and the big business tycoons—the "Sir John Wilders" of the C.B.I.—and put into clandestine operation, which is my main complaint, under the cover of the usual decoy board.
Metrication will mean even greater chaos for the British people for perhaps a decade or more. Every man, woman and child and almost all undertakings, both public and private, will suffer. The cost will be astronomic. My right hon. Friend brushed this aside, but I tend to believe in the estimate that puts the cost at around £5,000 million. Why?—because, along with decimalisation, metrication is being put into effect merely to show the hard-faced Europeans across the Channel—the Dr. Hallsteins—that Britain is trendy and "with it", that we are prepared, nay anxious, to stoop to any kind of folly, however self-destructive, to lubricate our passage into that alien trap, the Common Market. Everything from bricks to bottles will be changed in size, shape, weight and length to fit some supposed metric standard, quite irrespective of whether that standard exists.
This is not sound scientific or business judgment, or even common sense. Our scientists and engineers, our boffins—the best in the world—use the metric system already in their technical work without disturbing or disrupting the lives of ordinary people. Everyone is happy. Why not leave it at that? Why turn an entire nation inside out and back to front? But, no, 1984 is already here, complete with its crazy decimalisation and metrication, all part of what I call the old Common Market vaseline.
The deeds of every house and property in the country will have to be redrawn

and recomputed—a paradise, no doubt, for the lawyers, but expensive, distressing futility for us ordinary folk.
Liquid measures are to be changed also. The pint is to "go for a Burton". It will be replaced by a single unit—the litre. Every pint milk bottle or mug or tankard of beer will have to be scrapped, and will be scrapped, despite what my right hon. Friend said, and replaced by two alternatives—the half litre and the litre. I suspect that most milk and beer drinkers will switch from the pint to the half litre. But the half litre is not a pint. It is only four-fifths of a pint. But we may be sure that we shall pay the price for a full pint. We can expect little mercy from the brewers. With metrication, the British public will, in my opinion, be defrauded right across the metric cost-of-living board.
I turn to the question of weights. We have a splendid system of ounces, pounds, hundredweights and tons. The metric system offers us nothing in exchange except grammes and kilogrammes. The gramme is minute—1,000 to the kilogramme. The kilogramme is over 2 lb.—too much for ordinary use and absurdly small to take the place of the hundredweight or ton. I see more scope here for further fiddling and defrauding of the long-suffering British public.
The Americans still use the imperial measure and "Uncle Spam" got to the moon and back without metrication. The metric system has been used in France for 200 years. It was imposed by the revolutionaries. Yet the common sense of the ordinary people in France still rejects it and they go on using weights supposedly abolished two centuries ago. There appears to be no escape for us: 1984 is already here—or it will certainly be here by 1975, metric vesting day. The scales in every grocer's shop will have to be changed and all existing weighing machines will have to go, too—and the best of British luck to our housewives and old-age pensioners and the kids shopping for their mums round the corner.
Metrication, this academic folly—I would go as far as to say this gigantic swindle—is to pursue us even to the grave. I am told that a firm of undertakers is sending out a guide to metrication—I have told my wife to have a careful look at it—instructing next of kin


how to convert the size of headstones, plinths, vases, and so on, into millimetres. It is no good for me, I am afraid.
We are in the middle of these colossal, sweeping, shattering, vastly expensive changes, as far as I am aware without the authority of Parliament, and yet the Civil Service and the local education authorities—both Government agents—seem to be compelling these changes throughout the land. What I want to know—and I hope that my right hon. Friend when he winds up will give the answer—is, on whose orders, on what authority?
In a letter to me dated 11th August, 1970, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister had this to say on metrication:
We have no intention of interfering in any way with the voluntary plans and commitments which British industry has made for the wider use of metric units …. Rather we propose to encourage these developments and to use metric specifications for public purchases as soon as it becomes practicable for suppliers to meet such a demand".
If words mean anything—and we all know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister means exactly what he says—the words I have just quoted seem to suggest that the metrication pass has already been sold. If so, it has been sold, as far as I know, without a shadow of a mandate from this House or, more important, from the electorate.
In those circumstances, this debate seems to be a pretty futile charade—unless it is followed by a free vote of the House. But even that basic democratic freedom looks like being denied to us today. The Metrication Board's bulldozer is on our national doorstep waiting for its secretive, arrogant, eggheads and tycoons to say "go" with apparently the offhand blessing of the Government. As I see it, therefore, no defence exists against this latest madness except for the nation itself to cry, "No. Stop", and that in the voice of outrage loud and clear. I am convinced that over 90 per cent. of the electorate would do so and would object vocally, but this House tonight is being denied its ancient and most precious right to do so.

7.20 p.m.

Miss Joan Hall: Thank you for calling me, Mr. Speaker, to make my maiden speech in this important debate on metrication. My constituency was represented for the last six years by

Mr. John Binns. He was always friendly and fair and I trust that I shall follow the same pattern. I find that right hon. and hon. Members tend to pronounce the name of my constituency wrongly. They call it "Keeley", whereas it should be "Keithley", as if with a "th". It is an ideal constituency, with towns, villages, industry and farming, and a growing number of people who live within the constituency but travel every day to work in Bradford and Leeds. We have moorland, with lots of sheep, but also some nice wooded valleys.
Above all, we have a wonderful community spirit, which has been created by people who have been born and bred in the constituency. They care about their area and about each other. That spirit communicates itself to those who come and live there as well as to those who come there to work. Nor must I forget the jewel in Keighley's crown—that is Haworth, where the Brontës lived. Tourists come from all over the world to my constituency in Yorkshire. I am not a militant suffragette, but might I say that I am very proud to be the first Conservative woman Member of Parliament for Yorkshire.
My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Roger White) said that to many people, decimalisation and metrication are the same thing. I find that there is confusion about it. "Confusion" is a word which everybody has on his lips as soon as one mentions the subject. With confusion, ignorance goes hand in hand.
I was surprised when the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) said that this subject had been debated for a long time and people knew about it. All I can say is that perhaps those "up there" know all about it but that very little is known to the people "down here". When it is suggested that people know about the subject of metrication, it is those in industry who know. Industry is very important, but it is not the be-all and end-all. My experience—and I have done my homework in my constituency during the last few months, in the same way as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Redmond) has done—is that as the size of firm decreases, so does its antipathy increase. It is also sometimes forgotten that large companies


depend to a great extent on the small companies to which they subcontract work. Those small companies have less to do with outside trade organisations. Their managements are more personally concerned with the day-to-day working of their works and ensuring that orders are fulfilled and have less time to sit behind nice big executive desks reading reports and going to outside meetings and lunches.
It was mentioned earlier that the building industry appeared to be rather happy with metrication. That has not been my experience in talking to people in the building industry, which consists not simply of bricks and mortar. There is in my a constituency a publicly-quoted company which makes timber doors and window frames. It has on hand a thousand items at any time. Houses once built do not change size, but from time to time they need new doors and windows. Under metrication, therefore, that firm will have to carry two thousand items of stock for decades ahead. People talk about the cost, but has anybody thought also about the amount of space that will be needed? Figures of cost are bandied about, but very little is collated and known about what is involved.
In a technical college, for example, there might be an ordinary milling machine in the engineering department. To alter the feed dials from imperial to metric can be done at a cost of approximately £40 to £50. If, however, one alters the screws and their threads, the cost for each machine is between £200 and £300. Who decides how much to alter or whether to alter anything at all? It is this sort of cost on which it is impossible to get a final total.
It is said that the British are adaptable. I do not know whether I speak for many other hon. Members, but I know that I speak for many people throughout the country when I say that the question of Fahrenheit and centigrade leaves me quite cold. I know that 1 degree centigrade is freezing point, but anything else I simply cannot understand, even though it has been explained to me time and time again.
What about the millions of pensioners and housewives? Who will take their feelings into consideration? It was said from

the Front Bench that if the housewife wants to go out and buy in pounds and ounces, she will be able to do so. The position is not quite as simple as that, because when the shopkeeper buys a new weighing machine he must buy a metric machine, because the manufacturer will not be making both metric and imperial. Willy nilly, therefore, the housewife must buy metric. It is the individual who has been forgotten at the expense of the big companies.
Change is undoubtedly coming. There has been metrication in many industries for some time. It takes a generation and more, however, to accept change of this nature. Last Saturday, I went into the Keighley shopping centre and carried out my own survey to find out what was thought about metrication. A number of the comments were quite unrepeatable, but one of those which was repeatable was very wise. It came from a gentleman aged over 70, who said to me, "Nay, lass, it is too late for me to learn afresh", but his wife said, "Not if we are told the reason why."
I feel that there is a conspiracy going on under the table and behind the door, and the British people are naturally and rightly suspicious. I hope that when my right hon. Friend the Minister winds up the debate, we shall be enlightened somewhat more than we have been already.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that five hon. Members still wish to speak. I shall be able to call them all if speeches are reasonable in length.

7.27 p.m.

Mr. John H. Osborn: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Miss Joan Hall), not only on being the first Conservative lady Member for Yorkshire, but on an excellent maiden speech. I very much look forward to hearing many more speeches from her. I must confess that her speech this evening was not the first speech I have heard her make, and it was quite up to her usual standard.
We have had three excellent and interesting maiden speeches today, the other two being from my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Redmond) and my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Roger White). They have all


reiterated the message which came out from the last election: that the people want to know what it is about.
Hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches have not realised what an almost Alice in Wonderland debate this is. My right hon. Friend the Minister has inherited the position that, for reasons which, I hope, will be explained to us in greater detail, he must support a policy which was advocated by his predecessor in office, although during the whole of this debate not one hon. Member has spoken in support of his predecessor. It is, therefore, an unusual debate.
What are we debating? Are we suggesting that metrication should stop? Are we suggesting that there should never have been the decision to go metric? Parliament obviously has not consulted the people, and the people feel they are being taken for a ride by Parliament and the system.
However, if we in this House, in which today there have been some brilliant speeches, are asking the new Government to reverse the decision which has been taken, we should look into the nature of the decision which was taken by the Government's predecessors, and why—as well as the consequences of making a reversal.
I wish to make my position quite clear to my hon. Friends. I do not have to do so to hon. Members opposite this time. The Conservative Science and Technology Committee looked into this issue, and I chaired a sub-committee, where all the arguments which have been so ably deployed today were given by witnesses. This was some two to two-and-a-half years ago. I am quite certain that the then Director of the British Standards Institution, Mr. Binney, who has now retired, and members of the C.B.I., whom we met, were convinced at the time that I made the report that I was against the decision to go metric. This would have been hardly fair because I was some ten years ago associated with the Association of British Chambers of Commerce and its decision to urge the conversion to decimal currency and to consider going towards metrication.
There is no need to go through recent history, which has been well deployed and is well known, but when a decision was taken to set up the Metrication Board under Lord Ritchie-Calder the decision

was taken to start something of which the people of this country were, for one reason or another, not made aware.

Mr. Maude: I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend's speech. He has several times referred to the decision to go metric and has now spoken of a decision to set up the Metrication Board as starting a wider process. However, the decision to go metric so far as this House is concerned and so far as the people are concerned has surely not been taken yet. This is our complaint.

Mr. Osborn: I think my hon. Friend for taking the next paragraph out of my speech.

Mr. Maude: That is always a good thing to do!

Mr. Osborn: In fact the Metrication Board was set up and Lord Ritchie-Calder has been appointed chairman, and Lord Bessborough appointed vice-chairman—a Conservative peer. There was a meeting of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee this year which was addressed by Lord Ritchie-Calder and it was indeed constructive.
I come back to the point that I made, in an intervention, and I would condemn the then Minister of Technology, the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn), for not producing a White Paper. Parliament had only a Blue Paper, a report of the Joint Metrication Board. There was that statement in July, 1968; but, for whatecver reason, there was no debate, and this House was not consulted. There was not a sufficiently informative White Paper on the pros and cons. The debate taking place today should have taken place two years ago. This is why we are in difficulty now.
When, some 18 months ago, the subcommittee with which I was connected submitted its report we then made the statement that a decision, however it was taken, had been taken, and would be irrevocable in a short period of time, and that it would be dangerous and more costly and tend towards more chaos to go back. In my view, the time for that was approximately 18 months ago.

Mr. Maude: The decision was taken.

Mr. Osborn: My hon. Friend is quite right. We may criticise the decision which was taken and the method by


which it was taken, but the fact is that it was taken.
The country would agree that there are long-term advantages but costly short-term difficulties and disadvantages. What is apparent is that there was no endeavour to estimate the cost. Members of the Joint Standing Committee and even members of the C.B.I. who at the time advocated this change were too academic, over-enthusiastic, not sufficiently practical in their approach. The Government of the day should have been aware of this.
Individual industries have been affected by this decision. There has been difficulty and some misunderstanding. There will be questions of replacement. There will questions of job cards which are in imperial terms and which are not easily changed on the factory floor. There will be questions about duplication of stock. This is all part of the cost. To my regret, the nation has never had this spelt out and explained to it.
When I took part in a seminar in Sheffield, at the same time as the Chairman of the Metrication Board, Lord Ritchie Calder, made another visit on the same subject, under the sponsorship of one group, Hoskins Systems Ltd., the figure of the cost of transition was estimated to be £2,000 million. The British Equipment Trades Association suggested £5,000 million. One observer, Ann Lisa Gotsche, of The Guardian, said that on the Continent they were laughing because
Watching the British go metric is one of the saddest and funniest things to happen to continentals for years. Sad, because of the incredible expense, which the country can ill afford.…
The present position is that we have now a Conservative Government who find themselves in a cleft stick. The decision to go metric is not popular with the people of this country, and the odium will ultimately fall on the Government of the day, as the difficulties of mixing metric and imperial standards can cause confusion, and have done, in one industry after another, whilst the man in the street does not know what it is about.
My own view is that the nation cannot turn back. The decision must be seen through, because any slowing down would cause more chaos and confusion and duplication over the next five years. I would submit to this House, and to my

hon. Friends who have deployed very good arguments to the contrary, that at this stage we must now go on, as the cheapest way out of this dilemma.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page), in a very witty and delightful speech, submitted that the Metrication Board be put in suspense. I am afraid that that might cause increased chaos. He suggested that the Government, the Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry of Defence, hold back in asking for tenders in metrication. The Government must take the lead. If they hold back they will increase the period of confusion and transition. We have had an excellent Report from the Metrication Board and we have had reports from other bodies; if a White Paper were published the country could study that, too.
Having joined my hon. Friends in their opposition to what is now happening, I still reiterate that there are immense advantages in going metric and I very much hope that they will be reiterated in the debate; perhaps the hon. Member who winds up for the Opposition will reiterate the attractions to the last Government and underline them. My impression is that many industries know there are difficulties. There are difficulties for the larger companies, but the smaller companies are finding these difficulties extreme—difficulties associated with making adjustments to adapt themselves to a new set of standards. But these difficulties are being overcome with a great degree of success.

Mr. William Baxter: Would the hon. Member not agree that many small builders, and people in the building industry, painters, plumbers, joiners, and so on, will go out of business if metrication comes in? How would he compensate those people?

Mr. Osborn: I agree about the smaller companies, and my hon. Friends have mentioned them. It is very much more difficult for the smaller companies, and the smaller companies must be looked after. That is a challenge which the last Government failed to measure up to, and I very much hope that my hon. Friend, in winding up, will give some indication of how he sees their future. The last Government did not promise any form of compensation or financial assistance,


and I think it would be very difficult for this Government to do so either.
Mention has been made of the period of transition in the United States. I was assured two years ago that the United States would quickly go metric. The guess now is that, in spite of Public Law 90–472, it will be 10 years before that happens and a statement is to be made on the matter in August of next year. On the other hand, I have been in South Africa and have also had contact with Australia, New Zealand and other countries which are going metric and are overcoming the same sort of difficulties we shall all face.
Having agreed that there are long-term advantages, I should like to put forward one or two points for consideration. First, the move to greater international standards is essential in this industrial age. There is greater co-ordination among all the European countries towards a standard metric unit—the SI unit. Perhaps the use of standardisation as a reason for going metric was a bad reason in the first instance, but this is something to be welcomed.
Secondly, on the matter of education, although I concede that metric units should be the first units taught in our primary schools, I sincerely hope that for generations to come children at an older age will be made aware of imperial units because they will be with us for 25 years.
Thirdly, there has been considerable discussion about concessions. I believe that in terms of the retailing of milk the process of metrication might be slowed up. Perhaps for a time we shall be able to buy the 500 millilitre carton or the litre carton as well as the pint carton, and perhaps there could be some slowing up of metrication in the breweries. We must certainly look again at the matter of road signs. There may be good reason to hold up those matters which are not unconnected with Britain's entry into the E.E.C.
We have been asked to make short speeches and I have been on my feet for too long. Had I made this speech a year ago, or 18 years ago, I would have condemned the Minister then responsible for technology for not taking the people into his confidence. I now find myself in the position of having to ask a new Government to listen to the arguments that have

been deployed, but not to put the clock back. If we seek to put the clock back in industry, in civil engineering, in the construction industry and elsewhere it will ultimately cause greater confusion, but if the nation is now in a period of confusion this Government will have to see it through. This is the challenge that now faces Parliament—to complete what has now been started without destroying what we value from the past.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. John Biffen: I wish to begin by apologising for the fact that I shall not be able to be present at the conclusion of the debate to hear the winding-up speeches since I am being spirited away to defend the Government's announcement which was made earlier today. However, I hope that when my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction winds up he will draw on his recollection of history, particularly of the 18th century, and reflect on the Julian riots. He will remember that this was an explosive public outburst when something with which people were immensely conversant and about which they had a degree of intimate involvement, namely, their calendar, was arbitrarily changed, as they saw it, much against their general sentiment. It is a healthy reminder to all of us but, despite the strong words we have heard this afternoon, I feel that we will not necessarily reach that extent of direct action on this particular political issue.
Nobody who has sat through the debate could fail to have been impressed by the excellent trio of maiden speeches. My hon. Friends the Members for Bolton, West (Mr. Redmond), Gravesend (Mr. Roger White) and Keighley (Miss Joan Hall) all bring to the House first-hand experience of public sentiment and public reaction on this subject which, without doubt, causes a great deal of concern.
I should like to congratulate my right hon. Friends for arranging to debate this important matter on the first day that the House reassembles after the recess. The real issue is contained in some remarks made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in a Written Answer on 20th July this year in which he said of metrication:
… the Government are not as yet committed to general enabling legislation involving amendment of Statutes."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th July, 1970; Vol. 804, c. 19.]


I believe that that showed a prudent caution which was more than underlined by the speech of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Industry this afternoon.
I took note of the Minister's words, which were very encouraging. He said that there was no immediate need and that we could consider the matter at leisure. This language contrasts very much indeed with a great deal that has been said on this subject. I refer particularly to what we have been hearing from one or two senior businessmen like Sir Charles Bowlby, of Guest, Keen Nettlefold, who, in today's Financial Times, talks about the urgency of the matter and suggests that the Government should push ahead with the matter in which there can be no drawing back. The Metrication Board, also, has become the most assiduous advocate of pushing ahead with the argument that we are now well past any point of return. Indeed, Lord Ritchie-Calder, in the foreword to the 1970 report, said:
Going metric is no longer a question of 'whether' but 'when'. We in Britain have made our decision.
The House must ask itself whether we really have made a decision that the beer in pubs will be sold in litres, that milk, also, will be sold in litres and that we shall drive at kilometres per hour. Have we made the decision which affects retailing and the shopping public? I am not here talking so much about industries which may see certain advantages. I am talking of the people in our constituencies who have expressed concern. Have we decided on their behalf that this is inevitable and that it is only a question of "when", not "whether"?

Sir J. Eden: I do not want to deflect any kind words that were being directed towards me, but I would much rather do so if it avoids any misunderstanding between us. The words my hon. Friend quoted from my speech were quite clearly directed to that part about which he has just been speaking, namely, the question of beer and milk, and other matters of that sort. It was not referring to the progress which has been made by industry.

Mr. Biffen: So far as I know, no hon. Member in any speech made from this side of the House has talked in terms of

putting the clock back. At this point of time we are concerned to establish that something can be saved for the public in the whole argument about metrication which affects them intimately.
I wish to keep my remarks reasonably brief, so I will touch on four issues which are essential to this debate. They are the necessity for metrication, the motive, the cost, and, finally, the Government's rôle. First, as to the necessity, we live with enclaves of metrication within the commercial, industrial and academic worlds. The size of those enclaves has varied and is increasing at present. There may well be very sound, long-term arguments why a good deal of business may wish to go metric.
No one here has asked the Government to stop companies going metric. There is no question of calling for intervention to prevent businesses doing what they would otherwise wish to do out of what they regard as economic self-interest. However, we must be careful that we are not too quickly brainwashed by scientific argument about the necessity for it.
I want to draw the attention of hon. Members to what in my view is a moderately argued article by Mr. Oliver Stewart, in the Daily Telegraph today, in which he points out some of the problems which will exist if we adopt the SI system and it does not apply, as seems likely, to aviation and navigation.
We are concerned, rightly, that whatever may be the natural increase in metrication it shall not be forced down the throats of an unwilling general public. The House is in debt to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) for raising this topic on the Adjournment shortly before the recess and talking about saving the pint for the pub, the £ for the shop and the mile for the motorist.
I make only one comment on the necessity argument. I am puzzled by the extraordinary central feature that exports play in the argument. I have an ingrained suspicion every time that I see exports as the key argument. I know that regional policy will slip in next. On this occasion, it is straight exports, but I wonder whether we really think that the export potentials of our dairy industry and our brewing industry will be enhanced by going metric. Certainly, that


is not the view of the Metrication Board. It says, for example, in respect of the dairy industry:
Our view is that a round metric quantity as the unit of sale for milk is of special significance.
Why?
It will bring the reality of metrication into the home and class room more than any other change.
I turn now to the motive for metrication. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Arundel and Shoreham (Captain Kerby) feels strongly about the Common Market. I dare say that we all do in our ways, but he does particularly in his way. I do not want to raise this argument on my own initiative. All that I want to do is to quote a remark made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) on 27th October, 1966. Today, my hon. Friend is the Under-Secretary of State who is specially assigned responsibilities for weights and measures and, therefore, we must attribute great significance to what he says:
Will it not be inevitable, in the end, that we shall have to move towards the metric system? In this case, would it not be a very good earnest of the Government's intention with regard to joining Europe to take the step positively and early rather than leaving it to industry?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th October, 1966; Vol. 734, c. 1291–2.]
Those are dangerous words to have on the record and, in the circumstances, we would greatly value a categoric declaration of Government neutrality in this matter. That is not too much to ask, especially on a day in which we have heard about a whole range of economies in public expenditure.
That brings me to my next point, which is that of cost. There is the Metrication Board itself, costing £700,000 for the year just concluded. Let me set at rest any fears of my hon. Friend the Member for Hallam. I am not in favour of abolishing the board. However, I cannot help reflecting that there is a law which seems to run throughout public activities that one board finds jobs for other boards. Reading through the report of the Metrication Board, I discover that it has found a rôle for all the industry training boards. I am sure many of us have been wondering what they did, and there must come a stage when an hon. Member will quietly

ask what to me seems to be a question of monumental common sense significance: is not all this a little bit of a confidence trick?
Then there is the question of what it would cost to change our road signs. I do not intend to make partisan political points and pick up various comments of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who served in the previous Administration implying Government expenditures, but, on a day when we are told that there have to be cuts and deferments, metrication is not sacred. It is not so overwhelmingly popular that it can be relieved of the scrutiny being subjected to other topics. Are we to go ahead and change our road signs?
Finally, what about the additional cost of education represented by changing our school books?

Mr. Onslow: On the subject of road signs, is my hon. Friend aware that one of the complications in assessing the cost and an indication of the extent to which the Government are committed is that road sign manufacture has been decided to be particularly suitable for prison labour?

Mr. Biffen: I think that that question is more appropriate for my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction. I did not know that. I am not all that conversant with prison conditions.
Let me return to the cost on the education budget. It is another aspect of the way in which people pretend that it will not come to any great sum, and that it involves only the replacement of education books. That has been said by both Front Benches. However, that is not the view taken by the Metrication Board, and I quote from page 22 of its report:
Nevertheless, teachers will properly look to the local education authorities and to the Education Departments for adequate funds to meet the inescapable expenditure in schools to which metrication will give rise. It is government policy that the cost of metrication should lie were it falls, and this policy is no less applicable to central and local government responsibilities.
Do not let us deceive ourselves that it will be achieved on the cheap. It will not be, either in terms of Government expenditure or expenditures which will have to be undertaken by private industry.


Hon. Members will have received representations from milk distributors indicating the high cost involved in the switch to metrication. These are areas which are as yet untouched. We are not fighting a Neanderthal rearguard action. We are fighting for the retailing public, and we are entitled to answers on specific issues such as whether or not the dairy industry will be encouraged by the Government to go metric.
That brings me to my final point, which is the Government's attitude to the legislation now expected of them by those who are promoting metrication. Some time ago it was the view of the Standing Joint Committee on Metrication, set up under Mr. A. H. Wynn, that it was
… necessary for the enabling metric Act to be on the Statute Book and in force by the beginning of 1971.
The report of the Metrication Board called for the general enabling legislation. Further, we know that the report called for Orders by the relevant Government Department on the weights for commercial goods vehicles and for changes in the Merchant Shipping Acts.
These are all areas where legislation is expected of this Government. But if we are to proceed, in those welcome words of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Industry, to "consider at leisure", could not the first earnest of this view be an undertaking given this evening that none of that legislation will feature in this Session of Parliament?
This is not an area where party politics should obtrude. It is my judgment, notwithstanding the persuasive pro-metrication speech of the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East, that when it comes to it he will not be able to hold his party to it.
In the last Parliament many hon. Members felt that issues like British Standard Time and decimalisation were more appropriate for free votes than for party Whips. I think that sentiment would hold good of any metrication legislation brought before this House.
This is because there is a growing realisation and frustration about how this House of Commons can make heard the voice of the public. We hear a great deal about participation and the anxiety of people to be identified with the major changes which are being effected. I was

delighted to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) discussing this point on the radio not so long ago. We were reinforced in that view by our experiences at the General Election. This is why there is now a demand for a debate.
The right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East was right that there was not the same consistent demand before the election. The election brought home to many of us just how deeply felt and widespread are emotions on this subject. There is often a dangerous gap between what we believe to be public sentiment and what it really is. Is this not another instance of what not so long ago would have been inconceivable is now being presented as inevitable? Does not this contain the whole explosive nature of the problem? This is a point of serious substance.
The Metrication Board said that the time is past for argument about the merits of the decision to go metric. I not not think that those were wise words. I do not think that anyone with a sense of public feeling on this issue would be at all prudent to push this matter any further. The Government would be well advised to let the voice and the preference of the public be manifested without further Government intervention designed to promote metrication.
I hope that the Government will take as a guideline for their future policy, when considering legislation, that the sentiments of the shopping public shall have at least equal merit with the request of the mandarins of the Metrication Board. It is the job of Parliament to see that that is so.

8.4 p.m.

Mr. Angus Maude: I want and intend to be brief. I shall confine myself to one or two important points which I hope will engage the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction when he winds up the debate, and I shall ask one or two questions which I hope he will answer.
First, I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend will take note that there has been only one unreservedly pro-metrication speech in the debate from either side of the House There was a fairly noncommittal speech by my hon. Friend the


Minister for Industry, but the only speech which has unreservedly tried to propagandise in favour of metrication was that of the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn).
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn), in a sensible and balanced speech, kept referring to the decision that was taken to go metric. I asked him politely what the decision was and taken by whom. He could not, and did not, answer me. He referred again to this decision—whatever it was and by whom it was taken—when he said, "The decision has been taken. It is too late to go back on it."
My hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) referred to the same point. He said that maybe it is too late and he does not want to go back on it.
I say to my right hon. Friend that we, as politicians, have a right to look at the story of this process that has taken place and to ask that it should never again be allowed to happen in this way. Just look at what has happened. Parliament never took a decision about this matter; it was never asked to take a decision.
It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman the former Minister of Technology to say that this did not take place by stealth; that nothing took place by stealth. No? Is it not a fact that the Government changed their conditions for building tenders without consulting Parliament? Is it not a fact that they changed their system for allocating housing subsidies without consulting Parliament? These matters affected the expenditure of public money and the cost of building. Was Parliament consulted? The right hon. Gentleman says that nothing took place by stealth. It did take place by stealth.
My hon. Friend, who has grave doubts about some of the short-term effects that this can have on industry, said, "Yes, but the decision is taken, and it is too late to go back on it". A great many decisions of pretty sinister significance could be taken that way. Is not Parliament entitled to ask the Government to give an assurance that this kind of thing will not—at least under a Conservative Administration—ever happen again? It is a remarkably dangerous course for a Government to adopt.
Another question to which I hope my right hon. Friend will address himself is the consumer's interest, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry was talking. In the speech of the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East, who spoke second in the debate, I heard no word about what the British public thought or felt or wanted, what their interests were or who cared for them. We were told a great deal about what a number of official bodies had said to the Government.
I ask my right hon. Friend to be careful in adducing this evidence. Please do not say that the National Farmers' Union has approved of metrication and, therefore, the farmers are in favour of it. He might care to remember—I hope that he will—that the N.F.U. was adduced by Ministers in the last Government as being unreservedly in favour of the agricultural training levy—when not a single county branch had had a meeting about it and not one farmer had been consulted. The Government found that they had a roaring row and revolution on their hands, and they had to step down with ignominy and confusion.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will not tell us that the R.I.B.A. and the Confederation of Building Trade Employers are in favour and, therefore, all architects and builders are in favour. I have spoken to a lot of architects and building employers. They are not by any means in favour. Some of the big concerns are. So are the people who will make the standardised components and the machinery for producing them. This is good business for them. But I have met very few architects and builders, not working on a large scale in European export industries, who think that it makes a great deal of sense to change the standard sizes of doors and windows, and the plant for making them, which will be put into buildings in this country. What is more, they have never been given a chance to argue along these lines.
None of us who oppose the rapid advance of metrication in all fields has ever said that it does not make sense to standardise. None of us has ever said that it makes sense to make a machine, as we have been doing with motor cars in the past, in which some of the nuts and bolts are in inches, and some


in metric measure. Of course that does not make sense, and of course nobody wants to hold up sensible measures of standardisation.
I intervened in the speech of the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East when he said that metrication was fine because it would enable some clot who had been manufacturing 720 different kinds of components to standardise down to a simple 20 or 30. There is nothing to prevent this clot from doing it now. Is it necessary to impose metrication on a lot of other people who have been conducting their businesses with reasonable sense and efficiency, just to get this clot into line?
The other argument which was used, not only by the right hon. Gentleman, but by my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry, and which I beseech them not to use again, is that this is only a question of replacement and turnover, that it does not mean any new fresh capital expenditure, because people have to change the stuff anyway, and when they change it they might as well make it metric as inches. Are the right hon. Gentleman and my right hon. Friend trying to tell the House that if there is a mill with 75 spindles, or a weaving shed with 75 looms, or a plant with 75 machines making metal window frames, when one wears out there will be 74 machines measuring in inches and one measuring in metric, and the change will be made at the rate of one a year. I never heard such nonsense in all my life.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about school books. Is he suggesting that there will be 28 children in a class with their reasonably new books showing inches and pounds and drachms and scruples, but when two books wear out there will be two children in one corner of the class with new books all in the metric system? That sort of argument is the most peurile nonsense, yet we are being asked to swallow it. It makes no sense whatsoever.
We know that it will cost a lot of money if we force this change on people. For heaven's sake why not admit it? Let us argue this on sensible terms. Let us recognise that where there is a clear advantage to industry and nobody else

is adversely affected we are not trying to prevent industry from rationalising in a sensible kind of way. We ask the Government, and industry, to remember that consumers are affected by the decisions which producers take in their own interest, and that it is possible for the consumer to pay more for something which is to the convenience and interest of the producers. Let the Government, the C.B.I. and other bodies remember this and at least make some gesture of understanding and explanation towards the consumer whose costs will rise, and whose interests will be affected. We have heard very little of that yet. It is about time that we heard some of it.
For those things in respect of which it cannot be argued that there is a Common Market element, an export element or sensible rational standardisation element, I ask the Government—please—not to tell us that we must have metrication over the whole field or not at all, because they will not convince the British public of this. We have just spent goodness knows how many millions of pounds changing all the signposts in this country over to the Worboys system, so that we are now the worst signposted country in Europe, and a person cannot avoid losing his way on a journey of more than 50 miles. He is all right if he wants to go 400 miles, because the signposts will always tell him how to get to Glasgow or to Land's End. He will also be all right if he wants to get to Little Puddlecombe-in-the-Marsh, which is 1½ miles away. If, however, he wants to go 10 miles away, he will get lost at the first roundabout.
At a time when we are supposed to be economising in Government expenditure, is it seriously argued that this is the time to change all our signposts again to metrication? Is it seriously argued that we have to change our speed limit signs from miles per hour to kilometres per hour? I do not think that it can be. If it is argued that it makes it awkward for people with the wrong kind of speedometers, the answer that it is possible to make a speedometer calibrated in both miles per hour and kilometres per hour. A Government who are trying to make economies must give an assurance that they are not going out on a limb to indulge in unnecessary and foolish extravagances.

Mr. Peter Mills: I wonder whether my hon. Friend would comment on the sort of problem that will arise in my constituency where we have had new signs put up saying "Toilets 4 miles"—"Toilets 3 miles"—"Toilets 2 miles"—"Toilets 1 mile"—"Here they are!" If those distances are changed to kilometres my constituents will have an extremely anxious time.

Mr. Maude: I am not sure whether the moral of that story is that my hon. Friend's constituents are unable to read, or that the message must be dinned into them repeatedly before they grasp it. It could be argued that my hon. Friend is lucky to have public toilets by the roads at all in his constituency. I agree with my hon. Friend. To metricate the toilets in Devonshire would be an unnecessary expense.
All that we are asking is that my right hon. Friend who is to reply to the debate should recognise the weight, let him call it of inertia if he likes and no doubt the right hon. Member for Bristol South-East would call it the weight of reaction. The fact is that not many Members present today are in favour of a widespread change to metrication. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry who said that if there wore a Division on a free vote—we do not know what the Labour Party thinks because its Members have not been here, and have not spoken—with both sides present, it would be very difficult to get a majority for any measure of Government compulsion with regard to metrication, and not too easy to get a vote in favour of the Government's leaning on anybody to make him go a bit further than he has gone already. For goodness sake let the Government stand aside until we know a little more about the cost, or at least until they have told us more about the cost. We do not trust the Metrication Board to be honest about this because it is a passionate propagandist.
Let us have some objective fact-finding. Let us have the facts, and where there is no necessity to press on quickly, where it is a question of doing things which will be costly and which at the moment are unnecessary, let the Government lay off, and for once let common sense have its way.

8.19 p.m.

Mr. William Baxter: In case there is any misunderstanding about the opinions of certain members of the Labour Party I had better clarify the position. Those who have had the pleasure of being present today have listened to some excellent speeches. It is a pity that the Front Bench personnel—both on the Government and Opposition—have not been here in full array. If they had been they might have learned a fundamental lesson, which it would be worth at least the Government side learning.
The lesson to be learned is that one reason for the defeat of the Labour Party at the last election was the appearance of the Labour Government riding roughshod over the people, without consultation and without any concern for them, on issues on which those people had points of view. I refer not only to metrication but to decimalisation and similar issues. These ideas have come before the House and have been steamrollered through with little regard to the point of view of the man in the street.
For the last few years much confusion has existed in the minds of the ordinary electors. That is one reason why the Labour Party was defeated at the last election. Many of the Labour Government's measures were commendable and worthwhile, but they did not appreciate that unless they took the public with them they would sooner or later be voted out of office. Let that be a lesson to the present Government.
The metric system may have much to commend it in relation to exports. I am not an expert, so I leave it to those who are better qualified to say whether it is good, bad or immaterial for our export industries to proceed on the metric system. But I speak with a knowledge of the building industry, and I can assure the House that the subject of metrication is a great problem for that industry. My firm was recently asked to fill up a metric schedule for a local authority. It gave us a great deal of trouble. It took many quantity surveyors—capable and able young men—to fill up the schedule and present it in a fashion that was at least reasonably competitive.
Metrication is an even greater problem to the smaller builders. There are many small firms in the building industry—firms that are excellently run by men of quality and worth, who have no great educational background. These people left school at the age of 13 or 14, but they have built up excellent businesses and have become to a great degree the backbone of our larger undertakings. In the past—and I am sure that this will continue in the future—the larger undertakers have subcontracted some of their work to smaller firms.
The difficulty experienced by the smaller firms arises in connection with filling up schedules based on the metric system. Inevitably, this process will put many of them out of business. That factor must be borne in mind in deciding this issue.
One of my hon. Friends has said, "If they are inefficient they should go". That may be his point of view, but the fact that a painter, a plumber, a joiner or an electrician is not qualified to operate under the metric system does not mean that he does not do excellent work. That basic fact must percolate into the minds of Members of Parliament who seek to sit in places of responsibility. They should remember that practical experience is often worth ten times as much as theory. Practical experience is of some use even in this age.
Not only in the building industry but in the farming industry metrication will give rise to a good deal of trouble. I read in the Scottish Farmer the other day that particulars of a new metric system are available, at a price, to the farming community. Is every farmer in Scotland expected to buy a new calculator? Will this be taken into account in the next Price Review? It will be very difficult even for farmers—who are practical men—to operate under the metric system. Are they to be given no consideration?
I have a passing acquaintance with the hotel industry. Pints are drawn, and folk drink from glasses holding pints. Does metrication presuppose that all the existing measurements in the brewery industry must go by the board, without any consideration of the cost to the consumer? He will be the one who bears the cost—not the man who hands the drink over to him. Is there no halfway house in this metric system? Could

we not become fully metricated over a period of 50 or 60 years? Is there not a simpler and slower method of proceeding? Cannot we find some method of encouraging the export industry to metricate without at the same time bringing in metrication for the whole of industry?
I had no intention of participating in this debate, but I have given a warning. I have told my Front Bench the reason why our party failed at the last election and I counsel them to pay heed to my warning. I ask them to gang warily, and not to hurry this process. They may have done a lot of good things, but they forgot that if the public are not taken along they will lose the public's support. That is right.
Parliament has a duty to perform, and if it is deprived of its responsibility and the opportunity to carry out its duty not only are its Members debased—the whole institution that has given them their present position is debased. That is the crime that my Front Bench committed. Let it be a warning to the present Government Front Bench.

8.28 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I am glad that the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter) made that speech. For one thing, it would have been a pity if no one had spoken from his back benches, but also he emphasised a consideration which has been referred to by most speakers today—the function of Parliament in this matter and the way in which Parliament has been disparaged and by-passed in this whole business.
It is no good the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) saying that nothing was done by stealth. This has all been done by stealth. The right hon. Gentleman said that there has been no stealth because there was an announcement, or whatever it was, in 1790 about this, and there was a Statute in the reign of Queen Victoria which made it possible to do the things which the Government have been doing. I cannot dispute that: I was not here in 1790, but nor was anyone else in the House. And which of us combs through Victorian Statutes to see what mischief a Government may get up to if they are so inclined?
The fact is that, in the last two or three years, these among other things have


happened: first of all, a deadline has been set of 1975, by which the country is supposed to be totally metric, and which has been set by a committee which has no authority, but which, inasmuch as it is paid out of public funds, the public might very well think had some status and authority. And no one contradicted this or said that it was the private dictum of private people.

Sir J. Eden: May I correct one misunderstanding of my hon. and learned Friend? The date of 1975 referred to the date by which industry expects to have completed the process of metrication. It is different from what he said: it is not what he said.

Mr. Bell: With respect to my hon. Friend, I think that this has been put forward not merely as an expectation date but as a target date. The decision that Britain should go metric was made in 1965: that is in the report of the Metrication Board. My hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) referred to this in his speech. That, coming from a committee paid out of funds provided by Parliament, is misleading the public, it is a deception of the public. My hon. Friend himself, in a speech which I warmly commend for its lukewarm approach to the subject—it has been praised by many others: a very good speech indeed, taking the context into account—told us that there was already £2,000 million worth of work on the drawing boards in metric. We know why.

Sir J. Eden: Building work.

Mr. Bell: Yes, construction work. The Government have, for some time past—several Departments, if not all—been insisting on specifications in metric. I know that the Department of Education has even sent back specifications and insisted on their being redone in metric, and has in effect said, "No metric, no grant." We are told that, within a period of perhaps two years—there is a certain doubt about it—examinations for O-level will be set in metric terms. And all this in a parliamentary democracy without the Legislature having been so much as asked. It does indeed raise constitutional questions: the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire was quite right. This is not just failing to take the public along with you: it is very close to showing a super-

cilious contempt for die whole democratic process and the place that Parliament occupies in our constitution.
I know that it is said that the Government as purchasers, in exercising their purchasing power, are performing an executive act and not a legislative one. Technically, it is an executive act, but when the Executive uses its vast influence and purchasing power with public funds to change the system of weights and measures in the country without going to Parliament then I say that this raises questions of principle. It is common knowledge to all of us going around our constituencies that people have taken it for granted that this was something which it had been officially decided should happen. They thought that there must have been an Act of Parliament about it—yet the whole thing was a facade, a conspiracy and a deceit of the public and an evasion of Parliament. That is the first issue, and one which we should emphasise.

Mr. Alan Williams: Would the hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind that, in the five years since the official announcement, there have been two General Elections, at which hon. Gentlemen opposite did not choose to raise this issue and did not see it as an abuse of the constitution. No Supply Day debate has been requested, and no Early Day Motions.

Mr. Bell: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman said that, because it has reminded me of something that I intended to say but did not. I have raised it myself at General Elections, which is all I can do, in my constituency. I have asked for a Supply Day debate, but I did not press it—and I will tell the hon. Gentleman why I did not press very hard. It was because I believe that the Whips would be put on and that Parliament would be only apparently consulted. I was fortified in this belief by my experience of the closely allied subject—the imposition in Britain of Central European Time throughout the year.
We had a debate in Parliament about that subject. Parliament could be said to have been consulted, for there was a Bill about it. I was present in that debate and, indeed, played a leading part in it. Almost every speaker through a whole


long parliamentary day was against the Bill, but at the end of the day the bells rang and people came in from the Tea Room and the Library and goodness knows where and voted the Bill into law. We then had a Third Reading debate, and again there was not a friend for this proposal, but it went through "on the Whip". I do not think that the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire actually said it, but I saw him nodding approval when it was said that there was a general feeling on both sides of the House that that Measure and that sort of Measure ought to be passed by a free vote of the House.

Mr. Alan Williams: Would not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree—I do not want there to be any imputation that we are behaving in any way differently from his own party in this respect—that his party has waited a year and that one of his own colleagues has complained that there should have been a free vote given by his own side?

Mr. Bell: I do not bother about that sort of thing. If I wanted to vote against this Motion—although it is not profitable to vote against the Motion, That the House do now adjourn—I should do so. I have a strong suspicion that if that were to happen, the bells would ring and hon. Members would come in, not all knowing what the debate was about, and would vote against me.
On a subject like this both sides are to blame, for the whipping system is getting out of hand and is undermining the consultation of Parliament by the Executive. When they come to Parliament, the Government ought not to know whether they are going to get their Bill. They should always have to fight for it. That is what Parliament is for and I am content to generalise the indictment.
I hope that we shall lead on. We shall get better things from this Government and I hope that the Executive will consult Parliament and will come to it with the hope of getting its legislation. If we had pressed for a debate in the last Session, we should have had a vote in favour of what the then Government proposed and the then Government would have said that Parliament had given its approval.
Today's debate is a fair indication of Parliamentary opinion and a fair indica-

tion of opinion in the country, and nobody can doubt what that opinion has been today. There has not been one outright speech in favour of compulsory general metrication, except that by the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East.
There has been a tendency to represent those of us who have doubts about this as fighting a rearguard action for what Lord Ritchie-Calder has called a bag of old rubbish, or something like that. That is a great deal of nonsense. It is not true that we have to have entirely the one or the other. We have used the metric system in scientific work for a long time. For six years I was involved in a branch of scientific work in which we used the metric system all the time and I found no difficulty in using cubic centimetres and millibars, and so on, and then thinking in everyday terms in pints and miles. Nor does anybody else. Let us get that clear.
I am in favour of the decimalisation of the currency, because money is primarily counted. That is what units of money are for—counting. If a unit is primarily to be counted, it is sensible to have it corresponding with the numerical system. But pounds and miles and acres are primarily descriptive units. They are only secondarily counting units and the argument for decimalisation simply does not apply to them. There is no merit in what is proposed.
If a particular industry wants to standardise on the metric system, it can always do so. Some have done so in the past and there is nothing to stop others from doing so. What is false in the argument for metrication is that industries cannot standarise on metric measurements without the general public also abandoning pounds, acres and miles. That is factually not true, although the Metrication Board obstinately argues that it is. A little common sense will show anyone that it is not true.
Some of the evidence and influence about this subject is highly suspect. The C.B.I. tends to talk for the big people and certain vested interests are involved. Some of my hon. Friend have referred to those who have vested interests in producing the new tools or machines. There is also the vested interest of the big people who think—almost know—that a lot of small people will be run out of business if this change is made in an accelerated


Governmental way. That would suit them very nicely. Some of the big people are pretty impatient about small people, regarding them as relics of the past. The size factor comes into this and frequently we are told "bigness is the future", but I am not sure that it is. I reserve my position on that because there is usually an optimum size for each kind of business.
Unfortunately, the C.B.I. is predominantly the voice of the big people and I distrust this alleged voice of industry which says that it wants compulsory general metrication by Government lead. I fear that it is not the authentic voice of British industry.
If I interpret correctly the view which many hon. Members have, it is that we are not here rejecting the use of the metric system in Britain. We are resisting two things; first, this way of running it through, behind the back of Parliament, and, secondly, the concept that one must introduce it in an organised way for everybody, or not at all. It is said that half-measures are worse than useless and that they would be inefficient. That is not necessarily true in this case and I hope that my hon. and right hon. Friends who now have the Executive power will use that power with due deference to Parliament and with a stringent look at the logic of the argument, which is not quite what they thought it was.
The Government will incur no criticism if, in the end, it should turn out that, gradually and at a spontaneous pace, the country should move over to this new system. I have certain views about that, which I will not deploy now. Those are the issues before the House.

8.44 p.m.

Mr. Carol Mather: I begin by congratulating the three maiden speakers who have addressed us tonight. We were impressed because they were speaking for real people. One of the advantages of being a new boy here is that by the very nature of things one is more closely in touch with real people. I hope that on this issue the Government Front Bench will pay particular attention to the remarks of those hon. Members tonight.
We are to a certain extent on virgin ground as we discuss metrication. Although it is not so virgin as when this debate started. I am somewhat reminded

of the debate we had on the environment last July, for it seems that events are moving so fast these days that they creep up on us and we do not realise their presence until it is nearly too late. This will probably be the pattern with future events. Increasingly, we shall find that we are having to keep our eyes open to discern these events when they can be only dimly seen or when they are only a gleam in the eye of the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn).
We are grateful to the Government for providing time to discuss this issue. I wish to pay a particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page), because without his intervention we would probably not be discussing metrication today. The country owes him a debt of gratitude.
During the election I was asked a number of questions about metrication and I regret that at that time I was unable to answer them. But I have done my homework since then and I am led to the conclusion that comprehensive universal metrication is a bit of a nonsense. Looking at the guide which the Metrication Board has produced—"Metrication and Parliament, 1790 to 1970"—this has a slightly Orwellian ring. Of the 60 pages which comprise this booklet I am glad to note that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West has no less than three pages. I cannot work that out in decimals, but in fractions this is one-twentieth of the total output since 1790, which means that my hon. Friend has a place in history.
The metrication campaign which was carried out by the former Labour Government is an example of how not to do things in a democratic country. It is open to criticism on three grounds, on parliamentary grounds, on democratic grounds and on practical grounds. To take the parliamentary ground first, one gets the impression that this is an absolutely irreversible force rolling along out of control—at least out of the control of Parliament. We have not had a proper debate on the subject until now, there has been no White Paper or Green Paper, no impartial inquiry, no law and no Act. It reminds me of the game of grandmother's steps. One looks behind one and sees no move being made, but one is aware that something is creeping up all


the time; one turns round and whatever is there, is closer but still there is no move. This has been happening to Parliament on this question.
The report "Going Metric: the First 5 Years 1965–69", shows the Metrication Board is a propagandist in its own cause, which is to be expected. The board talks of having introduced "a broad-based information campaign", having "mounted a number of exhibitions", having "shown a large number of films", having "issued a very large number of leaflets" and stating that the programme would be "expanded during 1970". In the foreword the chairman tries to, as it were, jolly one along when he says that he envies "the younger generation, who will be disencumbered of the imperial system". He tells us that the report marks the "end of the beginning", that, "1970 is a watershed". We know that it has been a watershed, but in a different way, and he says he wants to see this "painless transition from the folk-lore of measurement".
All these statements are open to question. But wait for it, because the sting is in the tail. On page 71 of this report he says:
fortunately, the die is cast. The task now is not to hold inquests".
When did Parliament say so? This will have far-reaching effects on the lives of ordinary people which even now can only be perceived rather dimly. I am not saying that it is wrong for some industries to go metric. I am saying that it is wrong to treat Parliament in this way.
On the democratic grounds it was not, as far as I am aware, in any of the parties' manifestos. Mr. Christopher Booker, in an article in the Spectator last June, said that the direct effect on people's lives would be as great as any social reform in this century. I think that he is right.
We are about to lose one of our cultural foundations of the English way of life. With decimal currency coming and then the £ and ounce, foot, yard and the mile gone almost overnight, there will be a great danger of confusion. We have heard a lot about the bewilderment of people. They will no longer have a datum point, a point of reference in their lives. This is a very cruel imposition

on people particularly coming so soon after decimalisation. There ought to be time to digest it. Let us do one thing at a time.
Not long ago I was listening to "The Forsyte Saga" on television and Soames said of one of the fashionable political ideas going around before the war, "The British people won't stand for it". Why do those words have an unfamiliar ring today? Because we very seldom hear them said. I have no objection to metrication taking place for the convenience of industry, some have already done so, some work with both systems. But in this House we represent people not industry and we were elected by people, not industry.
Coming to the practical grounds, after the announcement we had earlier today we are very conscious about expenditure and cuts. In the report, "Going Metric", there was no estimate of costs and I mean direct costs. We all know that it is quite possible to make an estimate of this kind. It would have been helpful if we could have been told whether it would have been, for instance, more or less than £5,000 million. One fallacy is that people think that the imperial system is part of the British Empire system. It really refers to imperial Rome. This system spread throughout the whole of the Roman Empire and dates from those days.
With the new SI system there is a gap between the millimetre and the metre, there is no centimetre. If one is measuring a piece of wood 2 in. × 4 in. this will become 50 × 100 millimetres and if one is measuring a piece of wood 3 in. × 6 in. it will become 75 × 100 millimetres. And we know very well that we cannot saw or plane a piece of wood to within a millimetre of accuracy. The litre is inconvenient because it is too big to replace the pint of beer or pint of milk. The kilo is too heavy for the housewife to carry and we know that in France and Denmark they use the old system of the pound.
I have been looking into the construction industry. This industry will be metricated, according to the Metrication Board, by 1972. This is a fragmented industry of 80,000 separate firms of whom only 23,000 have more than seven employees. According to the report we


are irrevocably bound for metrication by 1972. There have been other systems in the building industry. There has been the prefabrication system which is generally acknowledged not to have worked. Now a new system is being brought into effect, dimensional co-ordination. In addition, there will be metrication.
In 1968, the construction industry had the opportunity to take a critical look at the whole programme. A well-known architect of the day, Mr. Derek Oxley, produced a report on the impact of metrication which I have read. It blows sky-high many of the myths about metrication. This report has never seen the light of day.
Finally, I have been reading, as no doubt other hon. Members have, a book by Mr. Alvin Toffler, called "Future Shock." He expresses in words some of the feelings which I have in my bones, that the pace of life is so rapid, and accelerating at such a speed that it is very difficult to keep up with it. This induces a feeling of bewilderment in people in all Western civilised countries.
Mr. Toffler called his book "a study of mass bewilderment in face of accelerating change." It may occur to us that many of our contemporary ills such as industrial unrest, civil disorder, senseless violence and drug-taking by the young, are due to this sense of bewilderment. If the metrication proposals are to be adopted wholesale, if decimalisation is to be followed by metrication of all our means of production, distribution and exchange, not to mention the commanding heights of the economy, then we are letting the public in for a large dose of future shock.
Let us, therefore, take it easy. Let us have a public inquiry so that those whose views have been smothered in industry can make their views felt. Let us above all save the pint, the mile and the acre. The "Pint, Mile and Acre" would not be a bad name for a public house when the time comes for us to celebrate.

8.58 p.m.

Mr. Alan Williams: The marked feature of this debate has been the extreme good nature with which it has been conducted, despite the strength of feeling, and I hope that I shall do nothing to alter the general tone of the debate.
We have heard three excellent maiden speeches. Naturally, I regret the passing from this House of honourable colleagues of mine, but I congratulate three hon. Members opposite on their maiden speeches.
The hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Redmond) made a most original and enjoyable maiden speech, while the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Roger White) interpreted "non-controversial" in a slightly novel sense and obviously worked on the premise that as long as he hit at both front benches this constituted being non-controversial. This fine balance of aggression made for a more interesting speech.
The hon. Lady the Member for Keighley (Miss Joan Hall) was equally fiercely non-controversial, and, having heard her ferocity when she is being friendly, I hope that in pronouncing her constituency correctly I have made a friend in the House.
As all hon. Members, even the newest Members, know, it is an endearing feature that when members of both Front Benches agree, back-bench members tend to be most alarmed. Having heard the debate, I now see why the two great enthusiasts in the Ministry for Trade and Industry—the Secretary of State and the Parliamentary Secretary, the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley)—were not put forward to speak in it. Having heard the speeches of my hon. Friends, I suspect that the unrestrained enthusiasm which they would have shown would have terrified their own back benchers.
However, this is not a party political matter. I refer to the words of the official Opposition spokesman of the time in the House of Lords on 26th June, 1969, the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, who said:
If ever there was a non-Party political issue, this is it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 26th June, 1969; Vol. 303, c. 280.]
Members on both sides have shown in their speeches an identical logic of approach. Both sides have, I suspect rightly, ruled out coercion and compulsion. I think that many of the misgivings which have been expressed today would not have been expressed if they had understood—and I believe that I speak for hon. Members opposite, although I should not presume to do so—that we


genuinely believed when we were in office, and I believe that they do now, that there is no intention to coerce industry which does not want to switch to a different system.

Mr. John Page: Does that argument stand up in the face of the instructions given by the Ministry of Housing and by the Ministry of Defence not to accept tenders which were not phrased in metric measurements?

Mr. Alan Williams: Surely the Government, as purchasers, are as entitled as any other purchaser to specify the terms in which they expect tenders to be submitted. Nevertheless—and I suspect that this answers the concern expressed about milk bottles and pints of beer—there is no need for manufacturers or suppliers of those commodities to switch to a metric measurement if they do not wish to do so.
The second thing which both sides had in common was that we recognised that the rate of change will differ not only between industries, but from firm to firm. While the target date is a general date, both sides would recognise that there might be exceptional industries which cannot or will not meet that date. Within industries very different rates have been chosen. In the car industry, for example, individual firms are converting on the basis of a succession of component changes; it is not a single date change. This phasing should help to reduce the cost of the conversion by making it more possible to adapt machinery at the normal time of replacement.
Both sides have recognised that there is a major task of co-ordination. This is a formidable job. I pay tribute to the British Standards Institution for the work which it has done. Although many hon. Members opposite may not agree with the work carried out by the Metrication Board, I hope that they would pay tribute to the sincerity with which it has pursued the functions it was given. I am sure that, on reflection, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude)—I regret saying this in his absence, but it is not entirely my fault—would wish to withdraw the word which he used when he said that he would not expect the Metrication Board to be "honest" in its presen-

tation of a case. I am sure that is not what the hon. Gentleman meant and that the members of the board will understand that this House, whatever it may feel about the job they have been given, would not wish to impugn the honesty of the board or of its individual members.
The hon. and gallant Member for Arundel and Shoreham (Captain Kerby), in a most entertaining and characteristic speech, referred to "the bulldozer" of the Metrication Board. Anyone who studies the events of the last five years will find that the progress has largely been made by industry under its own momentum. In evidence to one of the Parliamentary Committees on 14th July, 1970, the chairman of the board said:
There has been five years' solid progress since the decision to go metric in 1965. Relatively little of this has been because of the Board, which was not set up until May, 1969.
Obviously, therefore, there is no question of criticism from firms which have already chosen to go metric.
Before coming to the main body of my speech, I should like at this stage to put four questions to the Minister so that he will have time to consider his answers before he replies. Having been caught myself by being asked questions by hon. Members in the last sentence of their speech, I realise that it is helpful to give a little more time so that they may be considered in detail.
First, the Minister of Technology said shortly before the recess that the Government will use their existing powers to amend legislation where this will ease metrication. I should like to know what powers the Government will take to amend the legislation where the appropriate powers do not already exist. Will they introduce an enabling Bill? If so, when will it be brought forward, in view of the cost that will arise from unnecessary delay?
Secondly, since engineering is the key industry, which sets guidelines for the rest of industry, are the Government satisfied with the rate of progress in this sector? I know that there has been some questioning about this in industry. Thirdly, will the Government use their influence to try to ensure that whatever unit is judged to be appropriate for any source of energy it will be possible to


make a comparison, which at present cannot be done, between the relative efficiencies of types of fuel and apparatus? I gather that a little push would be needed to ensure that this was done.
Finally, in the event of conversion to metric of foods such as tea, butter and sugar, for which there are specified quantities of sale, will the Government guarantee to continue the present specified size safeguards? In other words, will they guarantee to introduce metric sizes also to protect the consumer?
A case for metrication originated in industry and substantially is justified on the basis of the benefits which it will bring to industry. Over 120 countries—representing 90 per cent. of the world's population and, therefore, 90 per cent. of the world's consumers—use the metric system. They include many Commonwealth countries, some of which have gone metric during the last two years. It is significant that the United States is considering conversion to metric when one bears in mind that if any country should be able theoretically to resist the trend to metric it would be the United States, because of its vast domestic market. Even so, the latest intimations seem to be that the pressure of international circumstances is forcing the Americans to consider changing their system.
Since 90 per cent. of the world's consumers live in metric countries, it is not surprising that 75 to 80 per cent. of the world's exports go to metric countries or that 80 per cent. of world trade, as against 50 per cent. in 1950, is today in metric units. It naturally follows that the proportion of United Kingdom exports to metric markets has risen from 50 to 60 per cent. during the 1960s. World markets are increasingly establishing metric standards for the goods they buy, and British industry has to reflect this fact.
The hon. and gallant Member for Arundel referred to "the old Common Market Vaseline." It is an interesting phrase, but I think the question of membership of the Common Market is largely irrelevant to this debate, contrary to what has been suggested by many hon. Gentlemen, one of whom, I see, is sufficiently enthusiastic in his opposition to me to shake his head.
I put forward this argument. If we go in then, obviously, we shall have to conform to whatever eventual Community standards are adopted; but if we do not go in it is no less important that we do not reduce our competitiveness in one of the most rapidly expanding markets of the world. So, in or out, we have to adopt standards which will give us access, and wider access, to the Common Market's consumer markets; and, in or out, technologically, collaboration will be easier if we have common measurements.
There has been reference to variety reduction. Some say this would take place anyhow, but, as hon. Gentlemen will appreciate, very often it needs a spur before industry undertakes this type of operation. I will quote the Secretary of State—I hope that he will forgive me for quoting him unwarned—from the article which he wrote only last year, when he said that
first and foremost, I think that the adoption of the metric system offers this country a unique chance to rationalise the whole range of national technical standards.
The right hon. Gentleman went on:
The Systeme Internationale … has the important merits of simplicity and completeness … there are even cases where the length of a product range can be reduced by a third or more with considerable financial saving.
So there is a strong case for linking as a spin-off variety reduction with a change in the system, added to which, of course, the sheer fact that trade is not dependent on production in duplicate, that is, in metric and imperial versions, of a product will itself create a reduction which could not be created in any other way.
Various examples have been quoted—the 1,600 types of windows becomes 200; twist drill varieties go from 200 to 77; fasteners from 405 to 186 sizes. In turn, this will further reduce the design work, which can be extremely expensive in some industries. The Deputy Director of the British Standards Institution, Mr. Feilden, quotes as an example the iron and steel plant builder, whose design time can be reduced by 15 per cent. by going metric, and he quotes the aero-engine builder with savings of the same magnitude.
I think that the industrial benefits are best summed up by Mr. Feilden in a


paper at the British Association at Exeter on 4th September last year, when he said:
All trading nations now recognise the need to knock down technical barriers to trade. The British Standards Institution's involvement in international standards work—to the extent of 60 per cent. of our resources—is not just idealism. We seek firm commercial benefits: easier access to world markets, readier acceptance of British goods, useful exchanges of technical know-how, world-wide elimination of barriers in the form of legislation or technical regulations. For years there has been anxiety about tariffs and the hindrance they present to global trade exchanges.
I would stress this final sentence:
But national standards differing in dimensions, quality and safety requirements are equally pre-emptive. Metrication gives the U.K. an unrivalled opportunity to press towards international harmonisation of industrial practices.
An overwhelming case can be made on the industrial front, given this important proviso which both sides have accepted, that there is no coercion. This is a primary system, but not the sole system. The word "sole" has not been used on this side of the House, and I am sure that it will not be used by hon. Gentlemen opposite.

Mr. John Page: Will it not lead to a sole system if we cease to teach anything but a single system, namely, the metric system, in the schools?

Mr. Alan Williams: I am sure it does, but nobody has suggested doing that. If we look at the preparations being undertaken by examining boards, it is not being suggested that imperial should not be taught. They are suggesting that the emphasis of teaching should move markedly away from imperial to metric, whereas at the moment the balance has been in the opposite direction. Even so, there should be savings.
The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price), who is Joint Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Technology, in an Answer on 6th July, said:
My own experience in my constituency is that most primary school headmasters welcome teaching the metric system."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th July, 1970; Vol. 803, c. 307.]
They welcome it because it is a simple and straightforward system.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter) expressed

concern for agriculture, but to quote an agricultural example with educational significance, the chairman of the N.F.U. Metric Committee, in The Times on 14th July this year, said:
In imperial, to convert tons per acre into ounces per square yard calls for four conversion factors and formidable calculation. In metric, it needs nothing more than the neat movement of a decimal point.
So that what could be an advantage to the farmer in his calculations will also help to remove from education that particular form of torture, the schoolboy arithmetic teaser. Indeed, the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) adduced what I personally thought to be a not particularly appealing argument in favour of keeping the imperial system based on the academic discipline. I do not want to see the imperial measurements becoming the new Latin in our schools—the discipline of the logical but useless.
The important thing educationally is that the switchover should save time. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon got slightly confused—and I do not blame him—when he took up the point about books. My right hon. Friend was speaking about the time-saving when he quoted savings earlier this afternoon.

Mr. John Page: No.

Mr. Alan Williams: My right hon. Friend made it quite clear. There are various estimates of educational savings. In The Times article Patrick O'Leary suggested that basic teaching time would be cut by a third. This is far too high. The Secretary of State for Industry, in his excellent article, referred to a possible cut in teaching time of 20 per cent. The British Association and the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, in their report on going metric, made the point that the saving could be 10 to 20 per cent. in mathematics teaching time and up to 5 per cent. of total teaching time for the 7 to 11-year-olds. These are significant savings which can make time available for study in greater depth of other subjects.
Only today I was speaking to the National Union of Teachers about conversion. The union stressed the point that to avoid procrastination, which they feel is a great danger with examining bodies, and to avoid unnecessary duplication of


examination papers the shorter the transition period the better and the more clear-cut the decision. But the fact we are going metric will mean that in both cases it will make sure that the examining body press ahead as rapidly as possible with conversion of curricula. Indeed, at a conference of N.U.T. members of C.S.E. boards on 17th October this year the need for a swift transition was again stressed. Understandably, the concern of the N.U.T. is for funds for the appropriate books. If industry goes metric, then schools must go metric in advance. They must be preparing the school leaver for the jobs industry will want them to take. Therefore, the educational system must not trail behind.
In view of the substantial reductions in public expenditure announced today, would the right hon. Gentleman consider—I do not ask him to go beyond considering—discussing with his right hon. Friends the possibility of helping towards the cost of providing the necessary school equipment in the short term which will be required for schools themselves to make the conversion? As I say, I do not expect an answer from him tonight, but I hope that he will say that he will look at the possibility.
The case against has been based upon variations of several arguments. The cost has been one of the major factors adduced against it and, in his very able maiden speech, the hon. Member for Gravesend quoted an estimate of £5,000 million which has been bandied about a great deal. As his was a maiden speech, I hope that he will not consider it too rough of me if I make the point that his party spokesman in the House of Lords last year, and his own Minister today, both refuted the figure.
In the other place, Lord St. Oswald said:
… so far as this enormous figure has any validity at all it must be a global estimate which takes no account of replacement machinery which would be bought in any case … Nor does it take account of machinery which can be adapted.
The noble Lord then quoted from G.K.N., who said, apparently, that any machine tool can be adapted at a cost of between £25 and £125. He went on to say:
That does not exactly spell ruin."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 26th June, 1969; Vol. 303, c. 283.]
I assume that that is a value judgment.

Mr. James Molyneaux: Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the carpet industry is in a very special position since its production depends on long-life machinery?

Mr. Alan Williams: I am sure that that is the case, and I am confident that his right hon. Friend will point out to the hon. Gentleman that that is why it is recognised that some industries will carry out their conversions some time after the target date. In the case of an industry with a non-investment cycle, it may be necessary to go beyond. However, that is really a matter more for the right hon. Gentleman opposite to deal with than for an Opposition spokesman.
Dealing with his estimate, the hon. Member for Gravesend made the point that global estimates lack all statistical foundation. That is a valid criticism. However, there has been very little significant statistical work done by the critics, and hon. Members on both sides recognise that it is difficult to produce meaningful figures. It is significant that no country which has converted in recent years has been able to produce meaningful figures prior to undertaking conversion.
On 14th July, the chairman of the Metrication Committee said:
The experience of people who have changed to metric is that it demonstrates advantages very quickly.
This fact is supported by a Select Committee of the Australian Senate which quoted the case of a Japanese motor manufacturer who recovered his conversion costs at the rate of 20 per cent. a year. It meant that after five years he recovered the total cost and from then on obtained a recurring benefit of 20 per cent. a year. This demonstrates the important point that, whereas costs are once and for all, the benefits are continuous and open-ended. Industry would hardly have advocated change five years ago and not altered its opinion in the meantime had the costs in those industries which have already undertaken conversion preparations proved insupportable.
I would urge against any form of delay. I am sure that the Government are aware of these facts. I would draw attention only to the point that the same Senate Select Committee assessed the cost of delay in conversion at up to 8 per cent.


a year, and that a report made to the South African Government indicated an assessment of a similar magnitude.
There are difficulties for the public to which reference has been made. I thought that the Daily Telegraph, on 22nd May, was less than kind to the Conservative Party when it said:
Despite the qualms of a handful of Conservative back benchers … the Opposition has remained conspicuously silent throughout.
This is not the case. This was before the election. That was why the term "Opposition" was used.
Last year, in the debate in the House of Lords, the Conservative Party came out strongly in support of the policy then being adopted by the Government. Again, in his vigorous speech, Lord St. Oswald said:
Consultation has taken place and is taking place, and a very wide and positive measure of consent has already been given."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 26th June. 1969; Vol. 303, c. 282.]
The Consumer Council, in a document which I think every hon. Member has received, has said that it
believes that conversion to the metric system.. will be of advantage to the consumer
—and it makes the point that usage quickly produces familiarity.
It is interesting to note that in what was essentially a knocking article on metrication the Daily Telegraph, on 22nd May, said:
As anyone who has shopped on the continent will know, it is possible to become adjusted quite soon to these simple measures.
The Women's Advisory Committee of the British Standards Institution, which contains women representatives of all the political parties and non-political groups, supports the change. It says:
At the Annual Conference in August … 180 delegates from 31 organisations broke up into ten groups to discuss metrication and other subjects of importance to shoppers. They were divided by age: 20–39, 40–59, and 60 and over. On metrication there was remarkable agreement between the ages. The consensus of opinion was that too much fuss was being made about the problems of metrication for the housewife.
The Guardian, in an article on 7th August, said:
Many Danes are still not very clear about the units between the centimetre and the

metre and between the metre and the kilometre.
It puts this forward as an argument against going metric. It is an equally legitimate point, I would think, that the rod, the pole, the perch and the furlong are not all that well understood in this country.
It seems that this criticism misunderstands the nature of a system of weights and measurements. Indeed, I thought that the hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) to some extent misunderstood it when he described it as mainly descriptive, because a system of weights and measures is essentially for use at varying levels. It has an everyday personal use—the sort to which the hon. and learned Gentleman was referring and to which The Guardian was referring—but it also has a technical and specialist rôle. In the same way that no one would surely suggest that a dictionary should contain only those words which are in everyday use—dictionaries would be much smaller if that was the case—equally a system of measurement must be more flexible in the range of uses for which it caters.
I confess that there are difficulties in relation to beer and to milk concerning the bottles and the measures. Indeed, many hon. Members seem to have expressed a little more concern about the former than the latter. I expect that many included the latter to justify talking of the former. However, one member of the Metrication Board, giving evidence to the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee on 14th July, said:
There will be sectors of national life which do not wish to change, despite the change which is going on around them. This will have to be accepted.
So there is no real difficulty. I do not see that it really creates a major difficulty to allow pints to continue to be served as pints or for the bottle of milk to continue to be delivered in the pint bottle as long as there is the standardised unit and the consumer is protected in the quantity which he buys for a given price.
I do not wish in any way to belittle criticisms which have been put forward. I am sure that much of the criticism which has been put forward has been on the misunderstanding that this is an inflexible determination to impose on everyone the weights and measures of metrication. This is not so. It is made clear


in the report, and we made it clear when we were the Government. I am sure that right hon. Gentlemen opposite intend to make it clear, too. The case for the action that we have taken, and which right hon. Gentlemen opposite have vindicated in their statements, is overwhelmingly proved, and I hope that the many hon. Gentlemen opposite who have put forward criticisms today will consider the arguments that I have advanced, and which are now to be put by the Minister, and perhaps withdraw their opposition to this change.

9.30 p.m.

The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. Julian Amery): Our proceedings earlier this afternoon after the Chancellor's statement were marked by a splendid explosion of artificial asperity and rancour. By contrast, I think that the debate which we are concluding has been a remarkable example of genuine strong feeling and concern, motivated in no way by partisan or interested inspiration.
I should like to begin by paying tribute to the three maiden speakers whom we have heard today. I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Redmond) made one of the best maiden speeches that I have heard. My father once said that John Redmond was the finest orator he had ever heard in the House of Commons. Perhaps my learned Friend will follow in his footsteps, and certainly we shall look forward to hearing him often.
The same is true of my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Roger White). He and I have spoken on the same platform more than once in the past. I congratulate, too, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Miss Joan Hall) on her maiden speech. I was a Lancashire Member for some years, but I trust that I got the pronunciation right. In the same context I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Arundel and Shoreham (Captain Kerby) on one of his rare interventions in the House. I did not agree with all that he said, but I enjoyed his speech very much, and I wish that he would give us the benefit of his advice more often.
There has grown up a conspiratorial theory about the origin of metrication.

There is one view that the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. Harold Wilson) took to reading Trollope—imitation is the sincerest form of flattery—and became convinced, like the Duke of Omnium, of the importance of the decimal and metric system. My researches do not confirm that theory.
Another view is that there is a Mafia of civil servants with vested interests who have pushed through the system by stealth, determined to keep it from the gaze of the public and the House of Commons. Equally, I hope that I shall be able to convince my hon. Friends that that is not true.
I can understand why my hon. Friends feel as they do. It is because there was a major breakdown in communications during the time when right hon. Gentlemen opposite were the Government. They never came to the House about this. They never published a White Paper on the subject. They never made any effort to carry public opinion with them, and the debate this afternoon proves the point most clearly by the fact that three maiden speakers, in a sense more representative than any of us of feeling in the constituencies, have all expressed grave doubts about the metric experiment, and I believe it to be a great experiment, on which we have embarked.
Where exactly does Britain stand on this issue? How far have we gone down the metric way? By what authority have we proceeded? This question was asked by more than one of my hon. Friends. The Acts of 1897 and 1963 made a wide range of metric measures lawful, and under these Acts British industry has gone a long way down the metric road. Its spokesmen have said that it has gone long past the point of no return. The last Government thought it right to encourage industry in this course. The action which they took was within their rights, and I do not think that I would dissent from it. But we are approaching a point where the process cannot continue without amending legislation, and later, enabling legislation. There will soon be a need to amend the statutory provisions expressed in imperial terms not covered by the Acts of 1897 and 1963 and, later, more broadly speaking, enabling legislation.
My right hon. Friend the then Minister of Technology—now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—said in July:
Where individual industries have voluntarily progressed to the point where amendments to regulations couched in non-metric terms become necessary the Government are prepared after consultation with interested parties to introduce amendments under existing statutory powers. It is for this reason that certain amendments of Schedules to the Weights and Measures Act 1963 relating in particular to the building and pharmaceutical industries have been laid before Parliament. On the other hand, the Government are not as yet committed to general enabling legislation involving amendment of Statutes. Before such legislation is introduced it is intended to provide time for the matter to be debated in both Houses of Parliament after the Recess."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th July, 1970; Vol. 804, c. 19–20.]
That is precisely what is happening today and will happen in another place in a few days' time—appropriately enough on Armistice Day. No final step can be taken without the consent of Parliament. Parliament's authority will be needed before we can proceed to amending or enabling legislation.
I turn to the merits of the case. There was a time in the last century when it looked as if the Imperial measure might displace the metric. There were even producers of champagne in France who produced an imperial pint bottle, which they thought was what an English gentleman should have with his dinner. The tide has turned the other way. We may regret it, but it is a fact. The move towards metrication has gone a long way. It is not the result of the work of theorists or starry-eyed idealists; it is the work of hard-headed businessmen, like my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry. These hard-headed businessmen think—and my right hon. Friend thought the same when he was in industry—that it is in the interests of industry to go metric. They, after all, are the people who will carry the bulk of the cost of the experiment. They are the people who will risk their competitive position in both home and foreign markets by doing so. We must attach great importance to the views expressed almost unanimously by their collective organisations. I realise that some industrialists take a different view, but the consistent view of organised industry over

a number of years has been in favour of metrication.
I was asked by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carshalton (Captain W. Elliot), my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) and the hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) to bear in mind the effect of all this on the price of food and other agricultural products. The Government have noted with interest the discussions that the industries concerned are holding about the possibility of adopting standard metric sizes. We hope that these will prove fruitful, and we shall be glad to examine the problem further when industry has reached a conclusion of its own. The range is limited, but it includes such important things as bread, butter, tea and sugar.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page), in a slightly Rabelaisian speech, questioned how far the views expressed by the C.B.I. represent the views of industry. We have made some detailed inquiries, not limited simply to material received from the C.B.I., and we are satisfied that the overwhelming majority of industry—especially advanced industry—is in favour of a change. My hon. Friend asked me how quickly the engineering industry is moving. It is, of course, a very diversified industry and some elements are marching faster than others. Some specialise in certain markets more than others. This is quite natural. I do not think that there should be any cause for surprise that it is not moving at the same speed as industries which are more homogeneous. The National Farmers Union—I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) urged me not to quote organisations too much—has already gone a long way towards encouraging advance into metrication.
Industry and agriculture have asked us two things, which they asked of the last Government. They have asked us to encourage the process and they have asked us, in the latest C.B.I. memorandum, to legislate to advance it. The question is what the Government should do under these circumstances. We have a duty to help industry and to help agriculture. We have also a duty to the consumer and to the public at large, to ordinary people living their ordinary lives.

Mr. Ronald Bell: When my right hon. Friend says "legislate", does he mean "propose legislation in Parliament"?

Mr. Amery: My hon. and learned Friend, as usual, with that precision which marks a great lawyer, has corrected me, and I stand corrected. As I say, we have to have regard both to the interests of the producers, and to the interests of the public at large, the consumers. We have to balance these two interests and decide whether we should encourage and whether at a later stage we should proceed to legislate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry urged me to adopt a stance of neutrality. We think that, other things being equal, if the interests of the consumer and the general public can be safeguarded, we should help industry and agriculture as much as we can. Of course it involves some public expenditure, but nothing like as much as the expenditure that industry is voluntarily undertaking.
We have thought it right—encouragement does not require legislation: this is an administrative procedure—to incur certain items of expenditure, as our predecessors did, to encourage it.
What form will encouragement take? There is education, of course, on which some significant things have been said today, which I will certainly bring to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. Broadly speaking, while we need a broad band of education, and while education is important in itself, it is also a training for later life. If the general environment of Britain is to move into a metric one, it will be important for children to be prepared for it.
There is also the question of transport. A number of references have been made to the implications of metrication here, and in particular, to the only point on which I think the previous Government went a little beyond the permissive position. They said that the speed limit would go metric by 1973. This is the only point on which I think that any attempt has been made administratively to impose a decision. I have listened carefully to what has been said on this score, and I will of course discuss what has been said with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport.
I would only stress at this stage that no opposition has been expressed to us or, as I understand it, to our predecessors, on this score from any of the motorist organisations. I am however taking this up and we will look into it carefully.

Mr. Onslow: Am I to take it from that that my right hon. Friend is saying that the Government are not committed to implementing the change to metrication in speed limits by 1973?

Mr. Amery: All I am saying is that I will discuss it with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport. I cannot speak with authority on the subject. I am reacting to the strong views expressed in the debate, which I think the Government should take into consideration.
I want to say a word about the rôle in all this of the construction industry. The public sector work of the building and civil engineering industry weighs enormously in the economy of the country. This sector buys half the output of the construction industry. When I speak of the public sector, I am speaking not merely of the central Government, but of the Armed Forces and, above all, local government.
Our predecessors thought it right, and I would not dissent from their view, that it was in the industry's interest and the public sector's interest to encourage and co-operate with them in the advancement of metrication in building. It is because of what we have achieved in this sector that I am replying to the debate this evening, and it may be of interest to the House to hear something of what we have done.

Mr. W. Baxter: Would the right hon. Gentleman give us some indication of what advantages there will be to the building industry, or the community at large, by going metric?

Mr. Amery: There is a good deal to be gained in the production of components and system building for the industry. This is certainly the view not only of my advisers, but of right hon. Gentlemen opposite when they were in the then Ministry of Public Building and Works. They strongly took this view and so did their advisers. I have studied it carefully and I have discussed it with the leaders of the building industry and none has dissented from it. The leaders of


the building industry and even more the civil engineering side are strong supporters. I will give some of their reasons. However, I want now to leave in the minds of hon. Members an understanding of how far the process has already gone.
As early as 1967, a detailed programme was published by the British Standards Institution and projects designed in metric terms began to reach sites at the beginning of 1970. The changeover to metric construction should be largely complete by the end of 1972. Where building is concerned, we have certainly passed the point of no return. By the middle of this year not only were £2,000 million worth of metric projects at the design stage, of which half were road projects and more than one-quarter housing, but 59 per cent. of all new dwellings under design this year will have been in metric. Already the public sector projects under construction as distinct from at the design stage are valued at more than £200 million of which £140 million or more are housing.
The changeover to metric design in the private sector has naturally been slower, but the professional associations have embraced it. The R.I.B.A. has urged architects to embark upon a policy of designing all work in metric, particularly in order not to leave clients in possession of obsolescent buildings.
My hon. Friend the Member for Peters-field (Miss Quennell) asked about the effect of all this on the conveyance of property. The land professions were advised by the Chartered Land Societies Committee to begin a practice period in February, 1970, during which all measurements and values were to be duplicated in both the new and the old system. The Land Registry has been prepared to accept metric documents since November, 1968, and the legal profession is prepared to convey land in metric terms.
One of the reasons why the building and the civil engineering industry has been so interested in metrication has been exports. The industry is much more concerned with exports than is generally supposed. The value of contracts for construction work overseas increased by almost 50 per cent. to £341 million in the year ended March 1970. The figure shows a growth of £107 million over last year's record of £234 million. It shows

that the increased effort made by British contractors and their overseas subsidiaries are paying off. They believe, and I see no reason to doubt their view, that the changeover to metric has already contributed to this remarkable increase in exports and is likely to boost it still further.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Arundel and Shoreham thought that this was all part of a plot connected with the Common Market. Even Professor Alan Taylor writing in the Sunday Express did not go quite as far as that. Of course it will help us in the European context, but, as the House knows perfectly well, the E.F.T.A. countries, the Soviet bloc and its Chinese competitors have all gone metric already. So have most of the Commonwealth, South Africa, the French former colonies. Indeed, I believe that if one could peer behind the sanctions barrier, one would even find that Rhodesia, too, had gone metric.
The Americans are the one exception and the question is why. The reason is simple enough. America depends very much more than most other countries on its vast domestic market and the advantages to be gained from the change are evenly balanced with those derived from continuing on present lines. But there is a strong movement towards metrication. Here I should like to correct both the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Arundel and Shoreham, for the Americans have already gone metric in their space programme which is a point of some importance.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon asked whether it was seriously argued or suggested that all our measures must be changed. The answer is, "No". It is not seriously argued that all our measures must be changed. It is not seriously argued that any of our Measures must be changed. What we want to do is to make it possible for industry which wants to go metric to do so. I see no hasty reason for taking steps which would interfere with the lives of ordinary people. It will be a nice point for the brewers and publicans to decide whether they want to go over from the pint to the litre, and I should have thought that they would have to pay close attention to consumer choice.
Nor is there any need why people should necessarily express themselves in metric rather than imperial measures, just as there is no reason why they should not describe their heights today in cubits or the lengths of their gardens in rods, poles or perches. I do not think my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry need worry about another lot of Julian riots; there is no reason why the new and the old measures should not subsist side by side for a long time to come.
I heard a story the other day which has some bearing on this. It was told in another place. A noble Lord, a friend of mine, was campaigning in the last war in the Vietnamese jungle and had to march through the jungle for a considerable distance. All that he could say in the native language was, "How much longer?" and in answer to this question one of the men kept holding up four fingers. When he finally found a man who could speak English, he asked him what the other man meant by holding up four fingers. The man who could speak English said, "That is an old-fashioned way of measuring distance. It means the greatest distance at which you can hear a dog bark through the jungle at a quiet time of the night." I see no reason why our time-honoured units of measurement should not be with us in a homely and domestic context for a long time to come.
It has been pointed out that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West and my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) have provided the origin to this debate by virtue of the Adjournment Motion moved by the former and a Parliamentary Question asked by the latter. I very much welcomed the assurance given by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West that if we could convince him that we had a strong case, he would be glad to support us in going forward with this issue
He and my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford felt that it would be right to give time for Parliament to express its views on a question which touches the daily lives of so many people. That is what we are doing today, why we are having this debate and why we are giving time very shortly for another debate in another place.
I have made it plain, as did my hon. Friend in opening the debate, that we favour going forward towards voluntary metrication. I have tried to make it plain that we are opposed to compulsion in any respect. I have explained that there would have to be amending and enabling legislation if we were to go very much further down this road, otherwise the whole variety of weights and measures which are now statutorily regulated in imperial terms could not be paralleled by similar metric measures.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Does that mean that the Government will now stop insisting on metric specifications?

Mr. Amery: It does not mean that the Government will administratively judge the tenders put before it necessarily by saying that they will not take imperial. We will take what we think is right and continue to encourage, in the case of the construction industry, the changeover to metric—[Interruption.]—but we will not propose legislation at this stage, and we cannot amend or enable without there being legislation.
We recognise that it is important to carry opinion with us before doing anything of the kind, and again I repeat the criticism I made at the beginning of my speech when I said that the Labour Party had been guilty of a serious mistake by not taking active steps to explain to the House and the public what the change was about.

Mr. John Page: Is there any difference whatever in the situation that exists after all the speeches that have been made today compared with the situation that prevailed before the debate took place and under the Labour Government? I reckon from what my right hon. Friend has said that there has been an insulting disregard of back benchers, at any rate on this side of the House. There has been absolutely no accommodation as far as, for example, transport and education are concerned. Unless there is a further undertaking given by my right hon. Friend, I shall try to divide the House.

Mr. Amery: I have already given my hon. Friend an assurance about transport.

Mr. John Page: There has been no undertaking whatever.

Mr. Amery: I was about to say that after taking full account of the views that have been expressed by my hon. Friend and others, and bearing in mind the views that will be expressed in another place shortly, we shall accordingly consider—and consider very seriously—the publication of a White Paper designed to put the facts before Parliament and the people before we proceed to any legislation.

Mr. John Page: Is my right hon. Friend saying that he will produce a White Paper before any legislation is introduced? If so, it would have been helpful if he had said that much earlier.

Mr. Amery: One is entitled to keep the best cherry in the basket till the end.

Mr. Keith Speed: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL OF WALES

9.59 p.m.

Mr. Michael Roberts: I beg to move
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the National Health Service (University Hospital of Wales (Cardiff) Designation) Order 1970 (S.I., 1970, No. 686), dated 5th May 1970, a copy of which was laid before this House on 13th May, in the last Session of the last Parliament, be annulled.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to this Prayer and, as this is the first occasion on which I have had the privilege to speak in this House, I wish to begin by saying of my predecessor, Mr. Edward Rowlands, that he is regarded with respect and affection by the people of Cardiff generally and in particular by the people of Cardiff, North.
My constituency is situated in the centre of the capital City of Wales. Edward Rowlands showed, and still shows, great concern in its interests and problems—in particular, the central development, the proposed urban motorways and the university expansion. He was recognised as a person concerned with the welfare and well-being of the people.
Most of the great buildings for which the capital City of Wales is justly famous are situated in my constituency. One of the most magnificent recent additions is the University Hospital of Wales at Heath Park, Cardiff, which is included in the Schedule of Statutory Instrument 686. The Statutory Instrument consists of two Schedules, one which lists 29 hospitals in the Cardiff area, and the other setting out the constitution of the University Hospital of Wales Hospital Management Committee.
The purpose of the Instrument is to unite the hospitals of the Cardiff area under a unified administration. This is eminently necessary as the division of responsibility between the United Cardiff Hospital and the Welsh Hospital Board, through its management committee, has not produced a unified and efficient service for this area. The purpose of the Instrument in unifying the service is rational and satisfactory as a unified service opens up greater opportunities for treating the sick and for teaching purposes.
However, the method by which this unification has been achieved is questioned by many closely associated with the hospital service. The medical board of the United Cardiff Hospital, comprising 140 medical staff, made representations to the Welsh Office requesting that Statutory Instrument 686 should be deferred. It is questioned because there is a fear that the teaching functions of that service will be damaged. Unification of the hospitals in the Cardiff area should be achieved without damaging the teaching side of that service. This could have been achieved by the preservation of the board of governors for the teaching hospital and by placing the hospitals listed in the Schedule of the Statutory Instrument directly under the control of the board of governors.
That this process could have been carried out is exemplified by the fact that within the last 12 months the Welsh Hospital Board transferred one hospital—the Royal Hamadryad General and Seamen's Hospital—from the Welsh Hospital Board to the board of governors. This process could be carried out to a larger extent to include all those hospitals listed in the Schedule. This method of achieving unification of hospital services has already been implemented in the London area.
The University Hospital Group proposed in Statutory Instrument 686 carries in the eyes of those connected with the medical service a lower status than that of an established teaching hospital, such as the United Cardiff Hospitals, prior to 1st October. Although I concede that the University Hospital Group now proposed will have more responsibility than that carried by a hospital management committee, it certainly will not have the same independence as that enjoyed by a teaching hospital.
Professional status and prestige may seem of little significance to the layman, but it is of great importance to the medical profession. A teaching hospital is in competition with the other teaching hospitals of the United Kingdom. Indeed, the competition is international. The loss of status for the teaching hospital of Wales could have a serious effect on its ability to attract highly qualified staff and to retain the staff already serving.
We are about to commission in Cardiff, in 1971, the new University Hospital of Wales—the most modern teaching hospital in the world. Given the right impetus, the Welsh teaching hospital should be able to establish supremacy throughout the United Kingdom. However, those seeking appointments in teaching hospitals—often the most highly qualified men in their profession—will fact the choice of London teaching hospitals, with greater independence and making their own appointments, and the new University Hospital of Wales, with less independence and with appointments in the hands of the Welsh Hospital Board. In the fiercely competitive world of teaching hospitals, if the teaching hospitals outside Wales are more attractive because of their administrative independence, the Welsh teaching hospital will not develop as well as it should. In those circumstances, the unification of the hospital services will have been achieved at a too high and unnecessary price.
For these reasons, I sincerely hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will recognise the fears which have been expressed, not only by me, but by many experienced consultants and specialists in the Cardiff area, and that he will withdraw the Order.

10.7 p.m.

Mr. George Thomas: It is not often that it falls to an hon. Member of the House to offer his congratulations to another hon. Member representing the constituency in which he lives. The hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Michael Roberts), much against my will, took the place of Ted Rowlands and I deeply appreciate, and so do my hon. and right hon. Friends, the generous tribute which he has paid tonight to Ted Rowlands. Both my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and I gave our full support, as the hon. Gentleman would expect, to keeping him at his worthy occupation as a schoolmaster in the City of Cardiff.
The hon. Gentleman is a schoolmaster in my constituency—a distinguished headmaster of the Church of Wales Secondary

School. For many years the hon. Gentleman and I, though on opposite sides in political matters, and deeply so, have been colleagues in the teaching profession. We are both members of the National Union of Teachers and I therefore have especial pleasure in congratulating him on the fluency and the power in which he argued his case on this, his first address to the House. It is traditional to congratulate people on their first speech but I offer him a warm and sincere congratulatory tribute for the way in which he succeeded in commanding the attention of both sides of the House tonight. I am sure that we all look forward to hearing him in future debates.
The hon. Member will not be surprised if I disagree with the content of his argument. We are in the unusual situation tonight of the Government having generously provided time to discuss my Order, which was laid before the House, which carries my signature and which I trust the Minister of State will support later. This Order was essential for the proper planning of the hospital resources in the City of Cardiff. The new hospital to which the hon. Member referred will provide 800 beds—an enormous hospital which has a direct effect on most of the other hospitals named in the First Schedule. Staffing this new hospital presents the Minister with a great difficulty.
Recruitment of nurses, doctors and hospital staff generally is bound to have a major disclocating effect on the other hospitals in the City of Cardiff. Overall comprehensive planning of our hospital resources would have been impossible without this Order. The hon. Gentleman said that the work in Cardiff has been impeded by the fact that we had two hospital management committees. One was concerned with teaching group hospitals and the other—this is a rough division—with all the rest. That meant that we had one important hospital committee dominated by its responsibility to staff the new university hospital by the spring of 1971. I understand it being the committee's first concern but the other hospital management committee, under the Welsh Hospital Board, equally has been dominated by the struggle to maintain proper staffing in the hospitals within its care.
Common sense dictated that this Measure be submitted to the House. Once I had resolved that this was a course of action essential for the proper development of our hospital services in Cardiff I called a conference of all interested parties. We had detailed consultation. I know that the Minister and his right hon. Friends do not go for consultation very much but on this matter there was considerable consultation over a period of months. The university, with its direct interest in the quality of medical teaching in Cardiff, was represented at these discussions. I met representatives of the other workers in the hospital services and for six months there was intensive consultation and discussion before the Order was submitted to the House. The Permanent Secretary to the Welsh Office, at my request, presided over a working party seeking to formulate an agreed plan for the merging of these two committees.
On that working party the medical consultants to whom the hon. Gentleman has referred were represented. They had as the guardian of their interests one of the doyens of medical consultants in Cardiff, Mr. Dilwyn Evans, and the Welsh Office and I understood that he carried the confidence of his colleagues. He was accompanied for the earlier part of the discussion by another great friend of us all, Mr. Howell, the physician consultant, who, unfortunately, had a fatal illness earlier in the year.
I attended a meeting in Cardiff of all the medical consultants who were available to come. Well over 100 medical consultants attended a meeting in, I believe, the Cardiff Royal Infirmary. I spoke there on the recommendations of the working party. I remind the Minister that the working party's recommendations to me when I held the office of Secretary of State were unanimous. The medical consultants agreed to the formula. They agreed to the details which have been submitted in this House.
I must express my surprise, at the lowest, and my indignation that the consultants should seek to renege on an agreement which they reached with other members of that committee. If the miners, the teachers or the railwaymen went back on their word when an agreement had been reached around the table in that fashion, the first people to de-

nounce them would be those who are going back on their word through the hon. Member for Cardiff, North, whom they have approached to bring this matter before the House tonight.
The medical consultants already have generous representation on the new hospital management committee. Indeed, my anxiety is lest it is too generous. The new scheme has already started; it began on the first of this month. Obviously, there are teething troubles. We must give it a chance to work.
The Welsh Hospital Board, which was one of the negotiating partners in this matter, has behaved in a highly responsibile way and I want to pay my tribute to Mr. Gwilym Prys Davies, Chairman of the Welsh Hospital Board, for his readiness to meet the board of governors on the concessions which they required. I believe that the Chairman of the United Cardiff Hospitals has been equally responsible. Thus, major concessions were agreed by the Welsh Hospital Board in order that the merger should go ahead.
They agreed, for instance, that Mr. Jeffcot, chairman of the board of governors of the teaching group, should be the chairman of the new United Hospital Committee. They agreed to generous representation, as reflected in the Order which is before the House tonight, of the teaching group on the new committee. They agreed to a special committee in which the university is well represented in making the new appointments.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, North raised certain fears before us tonight. He talked of the new University Hospital of Wales being in competition for recruitment with other hospitals elsewhere in the country. This £20 million hospital will be one of the best, if not the best, in the whole of Europe, and the equipment which is to be at the disposal of the medical profession there will be equal to anything found anywhere in the Western world. Because of this, I believe that the hon. Gentleman, and those for whom he has been speaking tonight, are grossly exaggerating the difficulty of getting people to work in that hospital because they do not like the constitution of the committee. I happen to know that in one major hospital in Cardiff 100 per cent. of the medical consultants have already opted to go to work in the University


Hospital of Wales. I happen to know that medical consultants who put the hon. Gentleman up to this tonight are themselves falling over one another to get the right place in the University Hospital of Wales. They have used the hon. Gentleman for a little bit of empire-building in this regard.
The hon. Gentleman is afraid that the teaching function of the hospital might be damaged. I hope that the Minister will agree with me that that is offensive to the University, which welcomes the proposals which are before the House, for in the archives of the Welsh Office there is a letter which the Secretary of State of the day received from the University in Cardiff thanking us for the way in which the arrangements had been conducted. There are a minority who seek to go back on the agreement reached in their name by Mr. Dilwyn Evans, for whom I have the utmost regard.
I hope that the Minister, who is speaking on this Order, and who is in a strange position tonight—

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Not half as strange as is the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Thomas: I am so pleased to see the hon. Gentleman again. I was going to the Missing Persons Bureau to look for him—and for his right hon. Friend.
The Minister of State has either to defend my Order tonight or withdraw it. He cannot withdraw it. I am the only person, I submit, who is able to withdraw this Order, because the Government have paid me the high tribute of providing time for an Order which they have put at our disposal today and which reminds me of a former existence when I served in the Welsh Office. I confidently expect the Minister of State to tell his hon. Friend that this Order must stand.

10.23 p.m.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: I do not want to comment on the merits of the Order because I do not know anything about it. I have not read it and I do not know the details. However, I want to comment on the tone adopted by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas). He is normally one of the most attractive of our colleagues in this House. We know that,

and we enjoy his company. But why does he despise the parliamentary procedure so much?
The whole basis of this procedure on statutory instruments is so that Parliament can discuss orders, even at the last minute, so that we can be certain that all points of view have been examined. What does the right hon. Gentleman do? He says he is indignant because my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Michael Roberts) has thought fit to place on record the views of people who ought to know something about it. Why is he indignant? If it is certain that the Order is above question and cannot be criticised, let the right hon. Gentleman say why he feels that to be the case. But it is not right that he should be indignant because people wish to use Parliament for what it is designed to do and that he should make accusations against my hon. Friend because he wants to know what certain people in that part of the world think about this matter.
The right hon. Gentleman is nothing like as charming in Opposition as he was when he was a Minister having to defend such an Order as this. Those of us who do not know the new hospital at Cardiff and who have not had an opportunity to look at the details of the Order must accept the verdict put forward in the debate by people who know something about it, but we are all entitled to resent the great indignation which the right hon. Gentleman has displayed in such intolerant terms tonight.

10.27 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: I join in the compliments which have been paid to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Michael Roberts). I wondered whether an Englishman was considered to have a right to intervene in Welsh affairs. Some people may say that that right is doubtful. However, by virtue of my father's birth in the Principality I can claim to be half Welsh and I still have many friends there. I listened carefully to the mellifluous tones of everything the former Secretary of State said. He is in a unique position this evening. He mentioned that he made the Order and that this Government have the dubious distinction of having it.

Mr. George Thomas: If the Minister of State says he wants to withdraw this


Order, if he wants to revert to the former position, I will co-operate with him.

Mr. Finsberg: I am grateful for that clarification. What worries me is the complete support of the Order by the former Secretary of State. It makes me highly suspicious. I have heard him in other spheres and his Welsh eloquence can often charm the birds off a tree. It does not mean, however, that there are any facts in his argument. I think his speech is unfortunate because this Order has come into effect already and comments in the newspapers in the Principality have added to the rightful indignation of many people. The possibility that this scheme might be abandoned has drawn comments from officials who should know better.
Perhaps calls for the protection of the rights of Parliament do not normally come from new Members of Parliament, but we new Members wish to guard those rights as jealously as do senior Members. I believe it is wrong that this state of affairs should confront this Parliament before we had had an opportunity to compel the Order to be withdrawn. I hope that the Minister will be able to convince those of us on this side of the House—and no one will ever convince the right hon. Gentleman opposite of anything in this sort of matter—that Parliament's rights are being safeguarded and that the issues raised can be dealt with satisfactorily.

10.30 p.m.

The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Mr. David Gibson-Watt): We have listened to a short but important debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Michael Roberts), whose speech was rightly described by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas) as fluent. It was also brief, and, in my experience, that commends it to the House. I take this opportunity of wishing my hon. Friend a long and successful life in this House. If he continues as he has started tonight, there it little doubt about that.
The right hon. Gentleman's speech came from one who has knowledge of the subject-matter, but I hope that he will understand when I say that I think that he spoiled his case by over-stating it. He said that he felt indignant, and he went on to accuse this section of doctors of

going back on their word. I want to rebut that accusation, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept my rebuttal.

Mr. George Thomas: Does the Minister of State confirm or deny that the medical consultants, acting on behalf of all their colleagues, agreed with the unanimous recommendation of the working party?

Mr. Gibson-Watt: That is not quite the point. My point was that the right hon. Gentleman over-stated his case when he accused the doctors of going back on their word. That is very different from what the right hon. Gentleman seeks to argue, and I ask him to accept that.
The Order sets up the University Hospital of Wales (Cardiff) Hospital Management Committee, and it was laid in May by the previous Administration. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North, in a very well-informed speech, set out the very difficult and sensitive problem on which it has fallen to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State to decide.
One of the first deputations which I received at the Welsh Office as Minister of State was from the medical staff of the teaching hospital in Cardiff about this Order. I met their representatives on 10th July and, having listened to their case, I promised that I would consult the Secretary of State and see them again. I did so and, on 15th September, I told them that after due consideration of all the facts, the Government had decided to stand by the Order.
My hon. Friend and the right hon. Gentleman have given the House a good deal of the history of the matter, but I wish to deal with it in greater detail and to explain why the Government adhere to their decision. The proposal to set up a University Hospital Group in the Cardiff area originated some time ago. The right hon. Gentleman, who rightly said that his name was on the Order, was the Minister at the Welsh Office responsible for this move. The object of his decision was to unite all the hospitals in the Cardiff area, especially in the knowledge that the new University Hospital of Wales at Heath would be commissioned in the near future.
The merger was started at a meeting when the right hon. Gentleman announced his intention of finding a solution, and, as he rightly said, he set up a working party to consider the matter. That was in October, 1969. The working party had on it representatives of the University of Wales, the Welsh Office, the Welsh Hospital Board, the Board of Governors, the Welsh National School of Medicine and the Cardiff and District Hospital Management Committee.
The working party reported in February this year, and the report, which was unanimous, recommended: first, that the establishment of a university hospital group was feasible and desirable; secondly, that suitable arrangements could be made to delegate certain responsibilities to the new group; thirdly, that acceptable transitional arrangements for both capital and revenue finance could be made and had in fact been informally agreed by the Welsh Office, the board of governors and the Hospital Board representatives; and, fourthly, that it would be possible to introduce a new group by the 1st October 1970, if Ministers agreed, which they did.
Having met the representatives of the teaching hospital, I fully understand their feelings. A teaching hospital—and up to now this is the only teaching hospital that we have in Wales—is a very special organisation. These men are specialists in the true sense of the word. Before this merger they enjoyed a particular position, with direct access to the Secretary of State, without being responsible to the Welsh Hospital Board.
The men who put this case to me at these two meetings showed genuine concern that the teaching hospital would lose its independence and that there would be unnecessary delays in reaching day-to-day decisions. They told me that what had led them to accept the merger proposed by the working party was the expectation that reorganisation of the National Health Service would take place in the near future and that a new order of events would be introduced anyway. Their fears are understandable, but I believe that they will be found to be groundless.
I should like to conclude by giving several specific reasons why I think that this is so. Both the board of governors of the United Cardiff Hospitals and the University of Wales have accepted the report of the working party. I wish to stress that there will be a very strong university and medical representation on the new management committee and that it has considerable delegated powers. The chairman of the new management committee, who was the chairman of the board of governors, as has already been said, will have direct access to the Secretary of State if and when it is required. This is an important concession and is evidence both of the good will of the Hospital Board and of the Secretary of State's determination that Cardiff Teaching Hospital remains a centre of excellence.
I do not pretend that this has been an easy decision for me or for my right hon. and learned Friend to reach, for the men who represented the Medical Board produced their arguments with a sincerity and an ability which could not fail to impress anyone with any knowledge of the medical profession. The Hospital Board is in no doubt that in holding to the original decision the Secretary of State has placed upon it a particular and special responsibility.
The standards of the Cardiff Medical School are recognised throughout the country. They are certainly recognised by the Hospital Board and by my right hon. and learned Friend and myself. If we had thought that this Order would put those standards at risk, we should not have placed it before the House tonight, nor should I have spoken as I have. That is why I ask the House to accept the Order.

10.39 p.m.

Mr. James Callaghan: I congratulate the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Michael Roberts) on his speech. My right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas) said that he was one of the hon. Gentleman's constituents. The hon. Gentleman once fought me at an election. I have fought six or seven opponents put up by the Conservative Party in the elections that I have contested. The hon. Gentleman was the opponent who gave me the closest run, and I always felt that


one day he would get into Parliament. He is here now, and I hope that he will enjoy himself.
I hope that the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg) is convinced of the merits of the case. Despite the eloquence of the hon. Member for Cardiff, North, I thought that the Minister made a case which is probably right. Let the hon. Gentleman not shelter, if he is tempted to do so, behind the belief that because my right hon. Friend introduced the Order the Government's hands are fettered. I hope it is clear to the hon. Gentleman that this is the Government's responsibility, and not the responsibility of my right hon. Friend. They are entitled to withdraw the Order. They are entitled to change the situation if they wish to do so.

Mr. George Thomas: They could have withdrawn it at any time.

Mr. Callaghan: Yes, and they could do so even now. The Minister of State has not withdrawn it because he knows that this is the right solution. He advocated it with sincerity and a certain amount of passion.
I pay tribute to the medical school at Cardiff. I think that there are some fine people there. The consultants and all those with whom I have come in contact there have impressed me very much indeed. We have heard a lot about all the people with interests there, except the patients, and in that sense this has been a strange debate, because although the interests of the medical school are important, as are the interests of the University of Wales and all the other medical staff there, what all this is about is the patients, the people who go there to be cured.
Having seen the operation of these boards ever since the Health Service was set up, I have long been convinced that it would be a good thing to amalgamate them in the way proposed, and the Minister has put his seal on it. But there is such a large whale in the middle of comparative minnows that we should get the whole situation unbalanced in terms of provision for the patients unless there was integrated management for the group. The hon. Member for Cardiff, North mentioned the Royal Hamadryad, a small hospital in my constituency with 50 beds. We should be running the risk

of drawing resources from that type of hospital—and there is more than one of that type—if this tremendous complex of which we are all proud, the new Cardiff teaching hospital, were to act on its own, inevitably drawing the best staff, inevitably attracting the nurses, inevitably attracting all the facilities from the smaller units around, and it is a good thing that they should be brought together.
We are proud of this great new hospital which was completed during the days of the Labour Government, and we thank our lucky stars that it was completed before that lot on the benches opposite got their plundering hands on the Health Service.

Question put and negatived.

CONSOLIDATION, &c., BILLS

Ordered,

That so much of the Lords Message of 23rd July as relates to the appointment of a Committee on—

(1) All Consolidation Bills whether public or private;
(2) Statute Law Revision Bills;
(3) Bills prepared pursuant to the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act, 1949;
(4) Bills to consolidate any enactments with amendments to give effect to recommendations made by one or both of the Law Commissions;
(5) Bills prepared by one or both of the Law Commissions to promote the reform of the Statute Law by the repeal, in accordance with the Law Commission recommendations, of certain enactments which (except in so far as their effect is preserved) are no longer of practical utility, and by making other provision in connection with the repeal of those enactments, together with any Law Commission report on any such Bill;

be now considered.—[Mr. Humphrey Atkins.]

So much of the said Lords Message considered accordingly.

Ordered,
That a Select Committee of twelve Members be appointed to join with the Committee appointed by the Lords to consider the following classes of Bills:—

(1) All Consolidation Bills, whether public or private;
(2) Statute Law Revision Bills;
(3) Bills prepared pursuant to the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure.) Act 1949;


(4) Bill to consolidate any enactments with amendments to give effect to recommendations made by one or both of the Law Commissions;
(5) Bills prepared by one or both of the Law Commissions to promote the reform of the Statute Law by the repeal, in accordance with the Law Commission recommendations, of certain enactments which (except in so far as their effect is preserved) are no longer of practical utility, and by making other provision in connection with the repeal of those enactments, together with any Law Commission report on any such Bill:

Ordered,
That any Memoranda laid pursuant to the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act 1949, and any representations made with respect thereto, and any reports containing recommendations by the Law Commission be referred to the Committee:—and the Committee was nominated of Mr. Peter Archer, Mr. Tom Boardman, Mr. Richard Crawshaw, Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke, Mr. Hall-Davis, Mr. Alan Green, Mr. Ian Percival, Mr. Peter Rees, Mr. John Smith, Mr. David Waddington, Mr. William Wells, and Mr. William Wilson.

Ordered,
That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records; and to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House:

Ordered,
That three by the Quorum of the Committee.—[Mr. Humphrey Atkins.]

Message to the Lords to acquaint them with such of the said Orders as are necessary to be communicated to their Lordships.

COAL INDUSTRY

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Weatherill.]

10.44 p.m.

Mr. Edward Milne: It is not without significance that the opening week of the Session of Parliament following the Summer Recess should be occupied with the problems of the coal industry. The importance of coal to the economy has been stressed from both sides of the House on many occasions in the past. Coal is the only fuel which does not detrimentally affect our balance of payments position.
At the moment, in the County of Northumberland, as in the other coalfields of Britain, we are suffering in some respects from past White Papers, and especially the White Paper of 1967—a White Paper which suggested that the coal consumption in Britain should be about 80 million tons by 1980 and would reach towards that figure in the mid-70s by the annual output and consumption of 120 million tons.
If those figures are realised, the reduction in manpower will be substantial in every coalfield in Britain, and in Northumberland and Durham alone, it has been estimated by the National Coal Board, the decline would bring down manpower to 6,500. We have requested this debate not only because of what has been happening to the coal communities of Northumberland but because this debate must be the starting point—in terms of the House, the Ministry and the nation—for the preparation of guide lines for our future fuel economy.
The Department of Employment and Productivity, in conjunction with the Coal Board, spent a considerable amount of money in drawing up a report on a closure of the Ryhope colliery in Durham. The report is on sale at a price of about £2 5s.—slightly less than the amount asked by miners by way of a wage increase in the recent negotiations.
In reporting on the effect of closures on the mining industry, the report refered to the fact that miners had been stranded by the tide of industrial change, technological advances and discoveries, and said that it confronted the nation with a social, economic and moral


problem. I do not want to deal with the moral problem tonight, because the solution of the moral responsibility of the nation to the miners depends entirely on the way in which we tackle the social and economic problems facing the communities that I have mentioned.
In 1947 there were 61 pits in the Northumberland coalfield, employing over 40,000 people. By 1960 there had been a decline, but it was nothing to what was to follow. In 1960 the number of pits in the Northumberland coalfield was 45, employing 34,260 people. The latest figures given in the 1969–70 report showed that the number of pits had declined to 16 and the number of people employed to 14,099. That figure has been reduced since then—and at a time when the industry had been demonstrating a productivity improvement which has virtually doubled the output per man-shift.
I need not remind the House of the outstanding contribution made by Northumberland to the coal mining industry and to our economy. The first Members of Parliament to come here from the trade union came from Northumberland, and the first miner to come here direct from the coal face was Charles Fenwick. He came here some time ago. Many of us remember with affection when Jim Bowman was Chairman of the Coal Board. Jim Bowman, as a Northumberland mining man, made an outstanding contribution to the coal industry and the betterment of the people who work in it.
In view of the economic and social consequences of the contraction of the industry, this is not just a plea for justice for those who work in the industry. If the economy is to reach the stage which most of us want it to reach, the mining contribution must be increased, because what happens to coal in areas where coal is produced concerns the rest of the economy.
I have not time to expand the point, but I wish to give one simple illustration. In the 10-year period which I have mentioned in relation to the figures for employment in the mining industry, the amount of coal shipped from the port of Blyth mainly to other parts of Britain, has declined from between six and seven million tons to an annual tonnage of about two million. Therefore, the effects of the contraction of the mining industry

are harshly felt in other sectors of the community.
The moral responsibility is great, because the mining people of Northumberland and their families have written an imperishable chapter in the social and industrial history of this island. Miners do not protest about pit closures for the sheer joy of working in pits. I am sure that that will be echoed by my constituents and all those who work in the industry. To pitmen, the pit is the centre of a tightly knit and deep-rooted community, but the problem of redundancy forms a special case. The nature of the miners' work and the closely knit interdependence of the community make the community in which the miners live unique.
The problem which will increasingly confront us is the higher proportion of older and disabled men in coal mining, which aggravates the difficulty of placing the redundant miners in new jobs. However, in the new industries which have been attracted to the North-East and to Northumberland, the adaptability and ability of the miner to fit into the pattern of industrial change which has taken place and which must accelerate has been outstanding. There is not a firm which has moved in to South-East Northumberland which has not only been glad of that but has paid tribute to it. The diversity of industries to which the mining communities have adapted and acclimatised themselves is possibly unparalleled in industrial change in Britain, at least in the present century. The areas of Britain which do not have coal in them are the fortunate areas. Because of this, mining problems must be borne not only by mining areas but by people outside them.
Another problem which is cropping up is that under the Redundancy Payments Scheme redundancy pay stops after 156 weeks. Many miners have now reached that stage or are about to reach it, with years of work before them but no possibility of employment because there has not been the acceleration of industry which we have a right to demand and for which the mining industry has a right to ask.
There is not time to deal with the anomalies within the scheme. There has been some harshness in its operation. Men of more than 60 have been left in pits while many under 60 have been


made redundant. This is because of the nature of the industry and the background of the set-up in Northumberland. That is why the Government have to consider retirement at 60 for miners in order to deal with the possible termination of redundancy payments under the Act.
I have dealt with the need for alternative industries. The Government must increase what has been an accelerating rate of the intake of new industries in the last six years. The intended programme for the years ahead, set in train by previous Ministers, must be not only maintained but increased. The social and economic cost of running down the coal industry can be met only by moving in new industries. While we plead for the cessation of closures until alternative employment has been provided, the Coal Board and the Government must not use the employment position to keep men in mining because alternative jobs are insufficient to meet demand.
There is another aspect of the social and economic consequences of closures. When closures occur, the land on which the pits have been sited is often passed back to the owners of the land leased to the original coal owners. Sometimes the land owners and the coal owners were one and the same. This has created difficulties over development and the allocation of land and the attraction of new industries, because the land is frozen by long-standing agreements. Apparently, it is all right to take jobs from miners, but nothing must be done to challenge the sacred rights of land owners. The Prime Minister has been talking a great deal about one nation and the equality of people within that nation, and we have every right to see that that aspect is examined.
The closure which sparked off the request for this debate was that at the Eccles Colliery at Barkworth in Northumberland. The secretary of the pit described it to me as 100 per cent. mechanised. Many of the men being declared redundant were directed to the neighbouring pit at Fenwick, at Holly-well, a conventional colliery with pick and shovel work. This pit was estimated to be losing a colossal sum and the Board admitted that a big question mark was hanging over its future. The future of the Eccles colliery is possibly insecure. It is true that at times of redundancy of this

description men are given a guarantee of nine-tenths of their previous earnings if they move to other pits, but frequently a transfer from one pit to another means that any advantage which mineworkers obtained in the wage negotiations which have been taking place with the N.C.B. is wiped out. Thus, while it is attractive to talk about a person getting nine-tenths of his previous salary, he suffers a considerable loss of income, spending power is lost to the community and this has an adverse effect on the whole economy.
We have tried to outline the problems confronting the fuel industry, and particularly the problems of Northumberland, along with the responsibilities which rest on the Government to intensify the work which was done for the industry and the economy in the last six years, not merely for the benefit of Northumberland's mining folk but in the interests of the economy as a whole. It is clear from the Report to which I have referred that the problems confronting the nation in this connection are social, economic and moral. They must be tackled with vigour, quickly, by the new Government.

11.3 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): I am glad that the hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Milne) has raised this subject because I agree that the difficult changes which take place in our industrial life should be considered sympathetically by Parliament and the Government.
It so happens that I know the area to which he refers well, having lived there for 30 years and having fought his predecessor, Lord Robens, in his own constituency in the election campaign of 1955. I always cherish a special concern for and interest in what takes place there.
I agree that there are major social and economic factors which make life very difficult for the coal mining industry and those who work or have worked in it, particularly in an area like Northumberland—and for that matter Durham—where there has been a particularly heavy rundown in the mining force. I am sure that in so far as morals come into this, we accept that we must assume our responsibilities towards the victims of industrial change; but this seems to be a social and economic problem rather than a moral one.
The hon. Gentleman spoke first about the prospects of the coal industry as a whole, and said that coal was the only fuel which did not make a charge across the exchanges on our balance of payments. That is no longer the case, because natural gas has been discovered and this fuel does not make a charge on our import bill.
The difficulty with fuel policy has always been that of forecasting what will happen. My late father wrote a report on the future of the coal industry at the beginning of the 1950s in which he forecast that the whole of that decade would be a period of increasing coal shortage. He was, I am afraid, totally wrong. It was a period of increasing coal surplus. There were very few who predicted, a year or two ago, that there would be a shortage of coal, which will possibly be the case over the next year or two.
It is impossible to be firm about forecasting demand. Demand is a variant of the price, and if coal prices itself out of the market, it is likely to decline faster than if it does not. Nor can one possibly know what will be the prices of competing fuels such as gas or oil, which have been displacing coal recently. It would be impossible to forecast exactly what will happen to coal in the future. I believe that there is room for a viable, profitable and large coal industry, but I cannot guess at the size of its output in any given year, nor at the employment which it will provide. What is certain is that the more the coal industry can reduce its costs and produce efficiently, the greater will be the market available to it.
I would certainly join with the hon. Member in paying tribute to the way in which the rundown has been handled during this difficult decade just ended, when the number of jobs in coalmining has been just about halved. In the Northumberland coalfield there were about twice as many jobs five years ago. In 1970 there are only 13,500 jobs in the 16 pits now operating. The Northumberland share in the decline has been higher than the national average. During that five-year period the decline in the labour force has been 49 per cent. whereas the average for the country as a whole has been only 38 per cent.
Not all of these men have been made unemployed. A certain number has left for other pits and a large number has found other jobs, not in coal-mining. Although this massive change has been taking place it has been much more a question of change to other activities or other parts of the country or other pits, rather than a question of blanket unemployment. The Blyth constituency had 12 collieries five years ago, employing 8,300 workers. It now has only six collieries, employing 4,200 men. It sticks to the county average in exactly halving its employment.
The hon. Member mentioned the Eccles Colliery. I understand from the Coal Board that the Eccles Colliery is nearly at the end of its life as regards reserves. It was reprieved in September by the Board because it is beginning to want to get the last ton of coal that it can, due to the very tight supply situation prevailing. Although that closure has been postponed, when I tell the hon. Member that the reason for that closure is the exhaustion of its reserves, he will I think, agree with me that it is impossible to keep the colliery going for a long period and that therefore it must be regarded in the long term as not likely to offer employment. Having said that, it is also fair to say that what remains in his constituency—five pits—will remain and that the pits further afield, in the Ashington and Morpeth area, have probably a good future. The new smelter at Lynemouth will take one million tons of coal a year. That will provide employment for about 1,000 miners. I have talked about the difficulties of forecasting but, as far as one can forecast, the probability is that this will be a fairly stable and economic coalfield as far ahead as it is possible to look.
I think that the right policy is to accept that the coal industry must change. It may even contract again in the future, although I think that the worst is over. At the same time, we have a keen responsibility to look after those who are the victims of this change. That is why the Government have announced that they will introduce a Coal Bill containing provisions to extend the redundancy pensions scheme for miners. It is, of course, the older and the disabled men who find it much more difficult to obtain jobs and


to accept retraining and new habits of work, even if the jobs are provided.
If the hon. Member looks at the unemployment figures for the area, he will probably agree that in the very high totals which exist in the Northumbrian coalfield area, a large proportion of these men are probably on pension and are, therefore, not in such a bad way as they might be. This tends to make the figures seem less menacing than they would otherwise appear.
Unemployment in the area is high. In the hon. Member's constituency it is 9½ per cent. and in the special development area it is 8½ per cent. There are about 4,000 men in the area looking for jobs. However, I think that I can end on a reasonably optimistic note. Over the next four years, we expect there to be a further 6,000 jobs at the minimum—and there may be more about which we do not know—which will arise in the general area of the Northumberland coalfield. Of those 6,000 jobs, 4,200 will be for men.
Other things being equal—that is, in the absence of further colliery closures, large-scale reductions or things that cannot at present be foreseen—this should bring enough employment to the area roughly to match the present number of people who are available and looking for work. This should make the hon. Mem-

ber feel that the prospects are reasonably hopeful, even if they are not excessively encouraging.
The hon. Member asked about the use of land which has been employed for coal-mining. I would only say that the Government provide 85 per cent. grant for the clearance of this land and the Northumberland County Council has added to that the other 15 per cent. which it provides to make sure that the clearance of derelict land will receive 100 per cent. grant to cover its restoration for industrial or other uses. This is taking place, and many imaginative schemes are under way, which, I suggest, rather invalidates the hon. Member's argument that large areas of land are lying sterile and that the Government are not playing their part in putting this right.
I can, therefore, say to the hon. Member that with the co-operative and ready spirit of responding to change which has been the feature of the mining community in Northumberland in the past, and with the reasonably hopeful prospects which I have outlined as being how we see it for the future, perhaps his fears need not be as deeply felt as he has expressed. I only hope that this is true.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at fourteen minutes past Eleven o'clock.